This summer, I finally gave in to my Mother’s month long persuasions of cutting my long hair short. I found all the pros and cons in her argument. The only problem was that, despite all those rationales, I still wanted my hair to stay as long as it was. My mom, for the very same reasons, was on Team “Trim ‘em” .
While the barber cut my hair, I closed my eyes shut, very tightly, and imagined an idyllic world where people delivered nice compliments to me about me and my hair. I gripped the black chair as more and more hair landed on my chest, on the floor, on my laps, right on top of the thin maroon overcoat I had been made to wear. I loathed taking off my glasses, only to look up to see the barber still cutting away more and more of my self, each lock of hair sending panicky feelings through my neurons. I told myself, I was overimagining this situation. It’s just hair. Just hair. But those words somehow made everything worse, so I started thinking about the delightful feeling I get when I see myself with freshly trimmed hair. The ends of my black threads curl inwards, beautifully, like celebrity models’ ringlets, while most of my locks fall limply to my sturdy back in fine, poised positions.
The cons were:
1. My hair was at my absolute longest right now; they had never been longer in my entire eighteen-year lifetime than they were at that point in time. Stretching all the way to my hips, they were very thin, and very straight, but they were also long. Long for me, at least. Cutting them would mean that reaching this stage in hair terms wouldn’t happen until a very, very long time in the future.
2. Cutting such long hair would subject me to physical, mental, and most of all, emotional trauma. I love my hair. I may not oil them, curl them, massage them, straighten them, perm them, style them, or braid them with every type of braid other than the only simple basic braid style I know, but I still love my hair. Yes, I wash them. There’s no dandruff, lice or any other living creatures in them; I checked. Enough said.
3. Everyone in my family and in my peer circle generally has long hair. I would become the outlier if I cut my hair. This is probably the weakest con, but it’s still a point to consider.
The pros were:
1. Shorter hair is always easier to manage, braid, wash, brush, style, spray, and take care of. It’s like having a smaller body. My counterargument for this works because it turned out to be true after having my hair cut: I only wash my scalp, and there is no way my scalp area is ever going to decrease in my lifetime. I’m always going to spend the same amount of time washing the same amount of scalp. Hair length has nothing to do with the time I spend washing my hair. Hence, no matter how short I cut my hair - yes, even a pixie cut - I’m never going to shorten my showering time. So, short hair does not free up my schedule in the bathing aspect of things. It does make overall management of hair slightly easier, but only very little. Now, I can’t even braid my hair. It’s too short; even my messy buns keep falling because my steps/layers keep falling out. No, management is definitely worse. I take my words back.
2. I will look decades younger. I told my Mother: “I don’t want to look unborn.” Alive works. Toddler works too. I have a round face and a very broad overall body structure. Long hair - among other things - makes people ask me questions like, “Which graduate school do you go to?”, “Where’s your ring?”, and “When are you graduating?” This is probably the only reason I agreed to let the barber touch my precious long hair. I spent years growing those. Cortisol levels, stress and tons of factors have been halting my hair growth to a standstill for years, and thus it took much longer than normal to grow them to a considerably long length. But, since I have had short hair many times before in my life, I definitely knew it made me look younger, and hence, fresher, livelier and more vibrant with energy.
3. I’ll thank my parents for it. I did. Mission Accomplished.
I regret my decision from time to time, but those emotions only last for moments, not prolonged hours. I miss my long hair, and hated the fact that, on their own, they looked wonderful, but on me - on my figure, my face, my body - they looked awful. Long hair simply didn’t suit me, no matter how much I loved the idea of having long hair. Now, I definitely looked younger, and more teenage. More my age. More me. With time, I’ll learn to like this feeling more than the one I had while enjoying my long locks.
