so there i was, sitting in a chair in the hair salon, wringing my hands beneath the black cape draped around me. the stylist was making her way around my head - snip, snip, snip. and she had a look on her face that was a blend of fierce concentration and sheer terror... perhaps because with every "snip" my expression got a little tighter. i finally couldn't take it anymore and closed my eyes. i knew i was being pathetic, but i couldn't help it.a month or two ago, i had this brilliant idea to get my hair cut. it had been so long for so long and i was itching for a change. but it's a funny thing when you have long hair - you get inordinately attached to it. even though you reach the point where you're always pulling it back into a ponytail or shoving it into a bun because you can't be bothered to style it anymore, you still can't quite imagine actually chopping it off.
after vacillating over it for weeks, i decided to just do it. but i went prepared: with pictures of styles i liked, and, of course, my mother. i made an appointment at the salon at home, where my mom is pretty much a celebrity. she's been going there for 20 years, knows everyone and is utterly adored. i figured with her there, nothing could go wrong.
and, OK, nothing really did go wrong. it just didn't turn out the way i had anticipated. at one point, after lopping off about five inches, the stylist asked me if the length was OK. "it's great," i told her, staring at my new shoulder-skimming strands. "that's exactly what i wanted." i was about to breathe a sigh of relief when something crazy happened: she kept cutting. suddenly, it was as if Edward Scissorhands were whirling around my head, clumps of hair flying madly through the air. i kept trying to catch my mother's eye - she was sitting in the empty hair chair next to me - but she was out of my peripheral vision. "help!" i wanted to gasp. "stop her!"
finally, she put the scissors down and picked up the blow-dryer. maybe it's not as short as it looks, i reasoned. maybe when it's dry, it'll look different. turns out, i was right - it did look different. it looked shorter. she sprayed it and teased it and i was desperate to get out of her chair before i burst into tears, but i could tell she was worried i didn't like it - because she asked me about a dozen times if i liked it - and i didn't have the heart to act as appalled as i felt. instead, i gushed over it and walked to the counter to pay with a big fake smile pasted to my face.
"you know i'm about to have a heart attack, right?" i muttered to my mom, who was oblivious to my angst. she told me she loved it. traitor.
the whole car ride home i kept glancing at myself in the rear view mirror. "oh my god, oh my god," i moaned. my poor mother felt like she'd let me down somehow, hadn't sufficiently used her star power to save my precious hair. again, i realized the whole time how ridiculous i was being, how impossibly many more worse things could have been happening to me, but it was like i had a Samson complex - without my hair, i was weak, powerless...funny-looking.
well, it's been five days now, and i'm still getting used to it. everyone who has seen it loves it, or so they say - except for the girl behind the counter in the sandwich shop i visit once or twice a week. she saw me this afternoon and shrieked, "oh my god, what happened?" motioning to my hair. "i know," i said. "i'm still getting used to it." she stared at me for a moment or two and finally replied, "well, at least it'll grow back."
amen, sister.
mb
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