You told me I looked terrible with bangs when I cut my hair. So, I grew them out. You told me my natural curls looked "lazy", so I straightened my hair more often. You seemed to like girls with blonde hair so blonde highlights were my new favorite addition at the hair salon.
You know what I think of all that? Screw it. Because If we're going to be honest here. I'm not attracted to blondes at all and guess what color your hair is? I like a man with a beard and guess what you can't really grow? I tried so hard to mold myself into exactly what you liked, and it still wasn't good enough. I fell in love with you for what I saw on the inside. For moments like the one where we were laughing so hard, we were crying while we were walking up ten flights of stairs to our hotel room because the elevator broke. I was so pissed at you; you needed a room on the tenth floor for the view. I guess that was always the difference between us. I would've been okay with a room in the basement because no matter where we went you were the view that I liked the most. Even with no bangs, straight hair and blonde highlights you still needed a tenth-floor view when we were together.
I bought plane tickets to go to San Francisco with you. I don't know why. I never had any interest in the Golden Gate Bridge. It was the blonde-haired guy standing in front of it I would've stared at longer. The guy that could make me laugh no matter how bad my day was. The guy that knew all my secrets. The guy that was hands down my best friend. Those were the things that mattered most to me. You, on the other hand, asked me if I would even fit in the middle seat on the plane. You wanted the window seat, again, probably for the much better view. I'm not exactly sure if it was that comment that pushed me over the edge or if it was a week later when I called you begging you to call me back one night because I just needed you to make me laugh. You never called. I canceled my plane ticket. I hope you enjoyed the extra room on the flight.
Five years. That's how long I have been trying to be good enough for you. How long I've been holding on to the potential I saw in us because I unlike you could see past all that shallow shit. You know what though FUCK IT. I'm sitting here with newly cut bangs, naturally curly "lazy" freshly dyed hair, eating a cheeseburger because fuck you. For making me laugh when I needed it most. For spending hours on the phone with me night after night. For taking me mini-golfing. Bowling. Fishing. Shopping. The list goes on. For taking me out to eat everywhere from that shitty Indian restaurant in Minneapolis to Red Lobster. For talking about our future. For making me believe for so long that you cared about me. But mostly for making me feel like I was worthless like my flaws were far worse than everyone else's. Fuck you.
If the message wasn't clear enough let me be clearer. In the end, when you're sitting next to the love of your life in the nursing home, you are both going to be old and wrinkly. One or probably both of you is going to be wearing a diaper. You might be smelly. You might be in wheelchairs. You might not even remember their name if dementia gets you. You will certainly both have gray hair. What matters in the end, is being with someone who can still make you laugh. Someone who is still your best friend after sixty-plus years. Someone who is and always has been a genuinely good human being. Nothing and I mean nothing from the bangs she had in her twenties to the size of her jeans is ever going to be more important than those things.
That's what I think of your shallow opinion about my hair.
"She wasn't just talking about her hair when she said she cut off her dead ends for growth." -Sarah Claire
