My hairbrush and I spend entirely too much time together.  Long gone are the days when I would brush my hair every other day (when I had long hair) or not at all (when I had short hair).  My hairbrush sadly sat in my drawer, waiting for the brief moments when it could run it’s bristles through my hair.  Now it angrily chews and tears at the tangles which plague my mane.  I believe both of us wish for the day when we can have a relationship somewhere in between.

I’ve been growing my hair out for a little over two years now. I cut it all off right before I thru hiked the Appalachian Trail and donated it to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. Long hair annoys me. When it’s long I have to brush it. I have try to keep the ends moisturized. It gets trapped under my husband while we’re sleeping and when I go to roll over I rudely awaken myself from pulling my own hair and then I have to wake my husband up so he can free me.

Last weekend my husband and I attended the Submarine Ball in Groton. I tend to dread events such as these, not because of the even itself, but because it means I have to do my hair. Okay. I don’t have to do my hair, but I want to do my hair so I look even better in my awesome dress. However, I am incapable of doing my hair. I have no idea what to do with it! When my hair is long enough I put in a ponytail. When it gets so long that a ponytail is annoying I put it in a bun. That’s my idea of doing my hair. Usually for fancy shindigs I pay someone to do my hair for me.

I looked up various hair salons with good ratings and an up do for a special occasion costs $65-75. This isn’t super surprising. Then I looked at the haircut prices…$35-50. Hmm… My hair has been annoying me… I’ve been wanting to cut it… A haircut is significantly cheaper than an up do… I decided it was time to chop all my hair off. I made an appointment for the Saturday morning of Sub Ball.

The last time I truly whacked off all my hair was in 2006 when I lived in San Diego. I went to Indigo Salon in Hillcrest and Jeff was my fabulous stylist. Every haircut he gave me was perfect. I never left his chair unhappy. He knew exactly what I wanted even though I couldn’t speak intelligible words, let alone form sentences to explain the look I was going for. The last time Jeff cut my hair he said, “Are you ready for your last fabulous haircut?” Little did I know it would be my last fabulous haircut.

In 2009 I moved to Charleston, SC. I went to a few different salons, desperately hoping to find another Jeff. I discovered there was only one Jeff, and he remained in San Diego. Since I couldn’t find anyone capable of cutting my hair short the way I wanted it, I grew it out instead. I cut my hair shorter before my thru hiker for each of maintenance, not because I was going to rock short again.

My hopes were high as I checked in for my haircut appointment on Saturday. I didn’t think my stylist would be the second coming of Jeff, but I still felt like good things were about to happen. Then I met my stylist.

Right away I could tell she was a junior stylist, mainly because she looked really young. Later that day I checked out the salon website and confirmed my suspicions (something I should have done before my appointment, duh!). I don’t have anything again junior stylist because I know they’re never going to become senior stylist without experience. I just prefer for them to get experience on someone else’s hair because I am so picky and my hair is so weird.

I explained what I wanted in the same fragmented, foreign tongue I always used with Jeff. She clearly didn’t speak my language. I showed a picture of a short haircut my husband liked and tried to use that to help explain what I wanted. Then I basically told her to work her magic and see what she could pull off with what I gave her. Big mistake.

I can’t say that I hated my new haircut…right away. It was short, just like I asked for…yup. Right after my appointment I went to a class and the other female students commented on how cute my hair was. I thought it probably wasn’t as bad as I thought it was.

Over the next couple of days I started to despise my new haircut. I felt like an old woman with a lopsided bowl cut. I looked at the picture I showed my stylist and then looked in the mirror and saw zero similarities between the two, except that both were short. My stylist in Virginia, Joy, was coming to Rhode Island for a couple of days and agreed to fix my hair.

Last night Joy whipped out her magical scissors and went to town on my hair. My husband was afraid I might be bald when she finished with how much hair was piling up on the floor. At the end of it all Joy managed to get rid of the bowl cut look and give me the asymmetrical style I was looking for. She also added some texture to my hair and fixed my area around my cowlick so it didn’t lay weird. Joy saved my hair.

I really like how super asymmetrical and funky my hair looks. I don’t even care that half of my head looks like a dude’s head. I wanted the front longer, but alas, I’ll just have to be patient and wait for my hair to grow. Luckily my hair grows fast.

Like the last time I cut my hair, I wanted to donate my hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. It meant even more to me since my husband and I both have relatives currently battling cancer. After my first haircut I brought my ponytail home and slapped my husband in the face with it. For fun. I set it down on the end table in the living room and went upstairs to shower and get all the cut hairs off of me. I return from my shower to find this:

My wonderful cat thought it would be fun to play with once ponytail. I’m sure she did have fun, but it didn’t change the fact that my hair was no longer suitable to donate. Two years worth of “work” instantly messed up by one curious cat. It’s almost like everything about this haircut was destined for doom.

“The difference between a flower and a weed is a judgment.”

“The first step to accepting yourself is to stop comparing yourself to others.”

Joe Duncan

When I was in high school, or maybe it was while I was in Navy (the years blur together these days), I wanted to do some menial job for a living. My mom told me I would waste my potential. When I told my husband I wanted to change my major to environmental science his biggest concern was whether or not I would make enough money. Money for what, I’m not sure. My husband and I are separated now, and I can do whatever I want when I grow up with zero constraints. The world is my oyster. The possibilities are endless. I am overwhelmed. There are too many options. Just like when you go to The Cheesecake Factory and you stare at all 100 pages of their menu and can’t decide what you want, so you stick with chicken alfredo because it’s safe and you don’t have to think. I don’t want my future to be chicken alfredo. I want something different. But what?

The professor in charge of the lab I’ve been working in agreed to help me narrow down my options. I told him I wanted to do something environmental related because the hippie in me is still determined to do my part to save the planet. I shared with him my ideas of working on trail crew, being a backcountry ranger, or a wildland firefighter. He asked if I could identify different species of birds or plants or stuff like that. I cannot, but I said I could learn. I explained that I’m better at math, quantitative analysis, and data analysis, and I really enjoy that stuff. Like a nerd.

First he told me I will not work on trail crew, fighting fires, or doing regular old environmental science. Instead of staying I would be wasting my potential, he explained that there are many more people in this world that can do those jobs that can’t do or hate to do quantitative analysis. If I want to “change the world” I need to go with what I’m good at. Not only will I be taking advantage of my skills, but if I’m doing something I love, it’s not work. Employers will basically be paying me to have fun. Nobody has ever put it like that before, and it really resonated with me. Now I have to research grad schools…