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The Thing about Long Hair
I’ve learned how to prevent it from trying to kill me, at least
My hair reaches my waist now.
Mostly that’s a byproduct of not having had the time or motivation to get it trimmed any time in the last (um, er) maybe two years, though I have in fact been intentionally trying to “grow it out”.
I put that phrase in quotes because it took me an exceptionally long time to realize that those words don’t mean the same thing to a hair-cutting person as they do to me, the hair-cuttee.
“I’m trying to grow it out,” I would say in the chair, black gown draped over me, my earrings removed and set on the table before me (as if my earrings were anywhere near the middle of my back). “So, cut as little off as you can.”
“Sure, I’ll just clean up the split ends,” she would say, and hack off two or three inches. (“Growing it out” clearly means “anything past the shoulders” in hairdresser-ese.)
Finally, after years, I learned to say, “I’m trying to grow it to my waist. I want waist-length hair. Please cut as little as you can so that it will grow to my waist.”
“Ah!” she would say, and only hack off an inch or two.
Well, maybe there’s more to my Trimming Boycott than just a busy schedule.
