I have a confession to make...I am extremely vain when it comes to my hair. Over the years I have done a lot of experimenting with hairstyles. Recently I've tried different haircuts. About a year ago I decided I was bored with my life and wanted a change. There isn't a lot in life that a married person can change on the fly. I decided to cut my hair in a new way to try for a new look. Unfortunately it got a little shorter than I had intended and I freaked out before matching the bottom layer with the rest of the hair. The resulting haircut looked like a modernized 80's mom haircut that was almost a fe-mulet. Even worse, nobody told me that it didn't look good and it took me almost a month to realize what I had done. I was very embarrassed. (You can see the haircut in the pictures from Jeremy's wedding.)
Luckily, when I realized the mistake I was able to trim the bottom layer so that it matched the rest of the hair and looked good. After a few months it had grown out enough that the hairstyle was starting to look awkward. I decided to keep it short and give it a trim, trying something new. It came out even worse than the 1st haircut with very uneven layers. Luckily I work in a building full of men and nobody even noticed. A couple of weeks later we went to Mexico and I decided to take Marley's suggestion and go to the hair place that his mom goes to. The awkward part was that I had only been to a hair salon once before in my life and I didn't get my hair styled the first time, I only had it cut off. Other than my mom, no one else had ever cut my hair before. I was nervous but I figured that I had already dealt with bad hair for several months and a few more wouldn't make that much of a difference if this ended up going badly.
Since I don't speak Spanish and none of the ladies there speak English, I was even more nervous about the visit but I decided to just let it be. Marley and I explained to his mom that I wanted to grow my hair out and just wanted the layers to be evened out. As I sat in the chair putting my life in her hands, my mother-in-law explained to the girl in a language I didn't understand what I wanted done with my hair. I could tell that the girl knew what she was doing right away by the way she started cutting my hair. I was interested to see the different kinds of scissors that she used on just a simple haircut and wished I could see better what she was doing. (I was not wearing my glasses) She had the most amazing scissors that had gaps in it so that she could cut only part of a section of hair at a different length. The sound they made was similar to a pair of really dull child's scissors but they definitely didn't make my hair look like it had been cut by a pair of dull child's scissors. As proof you can see the haircut in my Facebook profile picture.
Since that time I have decided that while I loved the haircut at the time and will probably try it again sometime I really miss my long hair. I miss being able to braid my hair into a really long braid, I miss being able to keep it pulled back without the front falling out, and I miss being able to feel my hair all the way down my back. After a few months of growing out my hair it got to an awkward place again where the cut did not look right anymore. We went back to Mexico and I was expecting another spectacular haircut. Unfortunately, this time I don't think I explained as well what I was wanting with my haircut because not only did the same girl cut a lot of hair off but she also created all the layers in the bottom half of my hair which only enhanced the awkwardness of my hair at that length. I asked for more layers and she fixed it enough that I was ok with the haircut but I wasn't sure exactly what it looked like because she didn't dry it all the way this time. By the time we had walked to Marley's Grandfather's house it had dried out and gotten a little frizzy. I was not happy when I saw what it looked like dry but I was not interested in anything more coming off because I knew in order to fix it it would have to get shorter.
At this point my hair has grown out some more and I'm getting impatient again with having a bad haircut. I have had awkward hair for most of the year and I'm having to fight myself so that I don't try to "fix" it again. I'm also worried that after not cutting my hair for so long I won't remember how to do it when the time comes for a trim and I'll just mess it up again. I'm also not too exited about continuing to have someone cut my hair that I can't really communicate with because one thing that I have learned over the years is that things mean different things to each person. This is compounded when one person is converting what she interprets as what you want into another language and tries to explain it to someone else. It is sort of like a complicated version of the game telephone...but with hair involved...did I mention that is the only thing I've ever really cared about concerning my looks?
Half of me wants the great haircut I know I can have and half of me just wants my hair back, it's amazing how the little things can make such a big difference in a person's life.
