12-7-12 I have been assimilated

I woke up in a cold sweat at 4:00 this morning and reached up to feel if I had any hair left.

You see, last night, on a whim, I grabbed the car keys, Sammi decided to come with, and we walked in to Great Clips for a haircut.

I haven't found anyone in Colorado to be "the one" -- my hair dresser, whom I trust implicitly, who knows where the cowlicks are and how my hair lays and where it parts and what makes it look best. Zeke Menchaca was my guy until I left Houston. I spent several years without anyone after that, trying to fit in with Zeke once a year, going without in between visits to H-town.  Then I found Regina in Navasota and that worked for a good while. And then we moved.

And I just can't seem to commit again. I've tried the expensive places and I've rolled the dice at Great Clips several times, and I can't tell a difference. So guess which one I go back to? The $15 haircut or the $60 one? 

But most times, I'm saying, "just the split ends" or "just a few long layers" and bore the hairstylist to death snipping minuscule pieces off with very little discernible difference, before versus after.

Last night, though, the wild hair hit. Not the wild hair of old, of course. Those were days when I was leaping without looking.

I went in on the day of prom to Zeke looking like this:

(working at Macy's)

and came out looking like this:

and am proud to say, to this day, Zeke tells me I am the only girl who's ever cut it all off the day of prom. 

Anyway, that was then.

Then, I would scoff at girls who bemoaned getting their hair cut, acting like a couple of inches was anything at all. Of course, my hair also grew at an alarming rate back then, too.

Now, somewhere along the line, I've been assimilated into the female culture that dreads going to the stylist and parting with any of her hair. Some of this is because I don't have "the one." But the other part is knowing my days are fast approaching when the thick, soft, luxurious hair follicles pack up their marbles and start to march off into the sunset. I'm guarding what I have a little more jealously every year. It also grows a fraction of an inch each month, so getting four inches lopped of feels like it is a death sentence, those inches never to return.

So, as I sat down in the stylist's chair last night, a couple of pictures in hand concerning the types of layering I wanted, she asked, "How short do you want to go?" And I, throwing caution to the wind, said, "It's looking really tired. Keep it as long as you can but make it healthy again." 

And then I shut my mouth and let her do her thing.

As I was watching hair fly, it put me in the mind of Edward Scissorhands.

At that point, you really are helpless. It occurred to me that part of the decision my stylist was making on the overall length was more dependent on the fact that she wasn't terribly tall, the chair was down as low as it would go, and layering means you pull all the hair straight up and cut at the same point. Or maybe this was just paranoia on my part.

When she was done, it felt like I'd been sheared.

I actually compared pictures taken this past weekend to ones taken this morning to convince myself she really hadn't chopped that much off. It looks much lighter and is so much easier to dry and style. But that didn't stop me from having the cold sweats in the middle of the night, seeing 12 inch strands lying about everywhere. Clearly, I am not as immune to cultural expectations as I'd like to believe.