This is hard for me to write about. When I was much much younger I didn't believe I fit the model for pretty - I wasn't blonde or light-eyed or thin. As I hit puberty I really came into my own and started believing I was the epitome of beautiful. I've more or less kept that up - it's moved from a juvenile adamantness to an impregnable self-assuredness that has been widely observed (to other people's astound, anger, or fascination).
Until about now.
For the last 6 months I have been hard pressed to grab my effortless sex appeal by the horns. It's manely the hair (ha, get it?). I have also gained a bit of weight from NYC food being SO DAMN GOOD N PLENTY - but I believe that will subside and I'm eating healthy food so I'm not worried. But maybe that's what worries me - I'm not worried or brow beating myself into being peak magnificent again. I'm just resting assured that this will pass and if it doesn't...SEE that's the thought I've never had before. I've always KNOWN I would get it back together with all certainty. Now I'm just sometimes not interested - sometimes I feel like it doesn't matter if I'm ever 100% again.
And here's another, more intimate, point. I'm not really interested in taking anybody but myself to bed. Even if I'm on a date and I really really like the other person - I don't know what to do because I'm still not into rolling in the hay with them. This plays into this because I'm not interested in being pretty for anybody else while I'm in this weird state of not being pretty for myself.
So basically getting dressed daily is hard. Because why put on pretty things and have a nice body and a great face if I really don't like my hair.
This brings us to why I'm writing on this in my public blog about hair growth and not my private blog about my innermost thoughts. This is a hair problem. This is a "I have been trying so hard for so long to love my hair but I'm just not into it. I can't stand another person saying I look 'cute'. I can't stand having to do my hair in the morning and worrying about it all day and STILL wanting to flee whenever there's a group photo. I don't feel pretty and nothing is helping." I still get cat-called. My dates still tell me I'm beautiful and want me. My friends and family seem to still like me.
It's just me. I want to wake up with my big beautiful head of hair that is unrelentingly gorgeous. Even hen I wake up late and not into my day I want that tumbling mass to whip out its sword and charge against my lack of interest. But on the other side I want the fierce beauty of my shaved head - to see my cheek bones and jawline pop and my eyes look huge. To wake up to myself unadulterated by transition and uncertainty. God I sound like a spoiled brat. But I have been spoiled for years. This is what I get - hair length that makes my nose look pigish and my jawline seem squishy. Oi.
On a date a year ago, before I cut my hair, the subject of my effortless beauty came up - more that I couldn't chose between highlighting any number of my beloved features. He teased me by saying I could be average and not have those problems. And I challenged that it might be easier. He set a scene where I see a person I'm interested in across a room and that person just looks right through me. (Side note - THIS IS SO SUPERFICIAL I COULD DIE). And I could feel that right from the first night I shaved my head.
But I think it could be me. My confidence is rubbed raw by all the time spent actually trying and not achieving. I remember in interviews not quite being able to trust that I looked good. And my life has changed so much since I shaved my head - so many people have never seen me with my hair cascading about me. Somebody told me that one day I'd stop feeling the need to tell people that I shaved my head - one day I'd just start owning my hair as it is. She said that in the first month. I haven't stopped wanting people to know who I was with that hair (or with a buzz cut now). And I worry every damn day that I'll never have it back. That this hair will grow out in half ass scraggly waves and I'll be forever fidgeting with my hair....or at that point I may just sacrifice it and then I'll have ended my hair's reign before it went downhill on its own. I couldn't bear to watch my glory be in shambles. But everything I read suggests that 17-22 is your best hair. And that was my best hair....in the year before I shaved it it started being a little flatter. I thought it was switching pillowcases and shampoo but now I wonder if it really was just a shift in my hair.
I ruminate about never having the same hair again. I felt bad for myself and it had to stop. So I stopped caring about how I look. I haven't done anything to look worse but I can feel a difference when I get dressed in the morning. I can feel it through the day. I don't feel like the center of my universe anymore. I feel unhinged and I can't quite get my footing in a world where I'm no longer the unmistakable sun.
I'm publishing this for the sake of my journey's completeness even though I know there are those who read this blog and will never let me live down this transcription of my actual feelings which aren't so different from those they have hidden away.
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