The Hair War

I am ending a long-fought war. I have given all of my energy to this fight that I am willing to give. I won’t say I’m surrendering, I won’t say that I have lost nor won this war. It is, however, over. While we have not reached a compromise, I am stopping the fighting. That’s right, the Hair War is over.

A woman’s self-worth and her hair are inseparably intertwined. A bad hair day can create a dark mood and a short temper. A bad hair cut can be cause for a sick day while we sort out the damages and sift through what’s left. Those of us with thin, fine, straight hair long for lush, curly locks. Those born with curls and thickness beg for straighteners and actually get their hair thinned. It is the absolute when it comes to wanting what we don’t have. It has for me been a life-long battle and a source of continuous disappointment. And somehow I have recently discovered that I no longer have the same need to fight.

My battle began early. Baby pictures of me quite often include a hat so apparently my mother was fully engaged in the hair battle alongside me. As a child of the 80s, my memories include countless tear-filled nights following bad perms and just as many broken hair brushes following a failure to get the right height which caused me to throw said brush against whatever wall was nearby. Did I mention the bad perms? Because there were many, many bad perms. Full perms, spot perms, wave perms, spiral perms. God, there were so many rollers and chemicals it’s a wonder my brain has any functionality at all. And the smell! Wow, it was bad.

Clearly at times I had bad advice from my mother and friends about my hair. Other times I distinctly remember my mother trying to sway me but I was undeterred. I remember always feeling that my hair was fighting against me in some way and that if I could just get it to look right, I would be happier, more popular, at least mildly attractive. Sigh. But somehow it always fell short of my expectations. Sometimes literally. I tried the Dorothy Hammil ‘do back in the day. I did the big hair in high school and even owned a few banana clips. As a young adult I scrunchied fairly often but it was never quite right. I tried highlights, low lights, sun-in, mousse, gel, whatever. I was still never satisfied. Both of my parents were completely gray (almost white) by 35, so the grays started early and so did the hair color. At some point, my hair stylist informed me that keeping my hair at its original (note: not natural) color of brown was pointless and that it was time to make the transition to blonde. BLONDE?!?! That was the ultimate betrayal. The on-no-you-didn’t with my hair. But I was defeated, I made the change.

And now, somehow, I’m over it.

At 40Something, I think my hair and I have come to some kind of arrangement where we agree to disagree and we’re willing to maintain a professional relationship. Every now and then it even gives me a small victory, a “good” hair day. Now it’s become something of an old classmate that I never liked and only now can see how much we have in common and how much time we’ve wasted thinking we didn’t like each other. We don’t need to make up for lost time, we don’t need to apologize for past fights, we’ve just found a way to co-exist with the occasional nod in the hallway.

And so that battle is over, the war has ended. Just in time, too, as I recall my mother and grandmother’s hairlines, this is about the time it will start to fall out anyway. 😉