The Life of M

Let’s get one thing clear: the fastest way to piss me off is to tell me how to fix my hair. That sounds silly but if I have one vain bone in my body, it’s not a bone and it sits at the top of my head. So let’s not dance around the subject and just get straight down to it: I have great hair. Of course, you might not agree but I really don’t care; I think it’s fantastic and mine is the only opinion that matters (healthy self-image and all that).

There are several parts of my body that I should feel self-conscious about and, admittedly, do. But I’m definitely of an old-school turn of mind and my tastes, as well as my body, are quite in sync with the styles of generations past.

One thing that I absolutely refuse to ever feel self-conscious about is my full, thick head of hair. This is not to say that it looks good 100% of the time but when I fix it up to look good, it looks good.

And this is definitely not to say that I’ve always felt this way. Actually, managing and loving my hair has been a hard-won battle so that’s why I take great umbrage when you tell me that it looks just fine the way it is: untouched, frizzy, icky and sticking in every direction (Mom!).

My hair even has it’s own timeline. Once upon a time there were the Princess Years, when I was a child and had the long, blond beautiful hair (I’ve seen the pictures) of a storybook princess. It was barely blond for a time but leaned towards the golden color it would later become. It was long and fell loosely down my back, capped in little wild ringlets at the ends. A friend said the other night that we always seem to forget the painful parts of life and there was pain that came with having hair that long—mostly just brushing it—but in my mind it was perfect. It was every mother’s dream for their little girl.

And then came the Uglies. The time that now makes me shudder with horror and then made me want to cry and hide my head under a paper bag. It was this terrible yellowish-brown color taking the form of a frizzy misshapen mass on my head. For some reason my mother thought it was beautiful and since she insisted wearing it down for Sunday Mass, going to church was beyond painful and many of arguments ended with me in tears because I was so embarrassed.

This seems far too dramatic but before you judge, think of that one thing—a certain body part or habit or personality quirk—that debilitates with the mere thought of having to leave that part of yourself bare for the world to see and judge. Everyone has this weak spot and for me it was hair, untamed.

During the Uglies I wore my hair mostly in a ponytail. And then I cut it short because for someone insane reason the book I was reading at the time by my childhood favorite author, Tamora Pierce, featured a character with short hair. I’ve learned my lesson that storybook hair only lasts while you’re a child and you should never do something based on support from a fictional person who has perfect hair and doesn’t live in South Texas or anywhere else with humidity.

That was a rough time and after coming out of that, I never wanted to mess with my hair again so it became long. Somehow, I stumbled upon the realization that my long hair was quite pretty actually, especially if I tamed it just a little with some mousse. With that, my curly hair was reborn.

It took a while to get the technique of it just right. When I first started doing my hair with mousse, I would let it dry then slap it with mousse. This was both painful and messy; since I have such thick hair, I shed easily and it would come loose in clumps stuck to my sticky fingers. I remembered that when my older sister used to scrunch her hair way back in the day—she was blessed with the perfect shade of blond and perfectly straight and manageable—she would do it with her hair wet.

As my hair grew so did my love of it. It was quite pretty, really long and curly and when it dried just right it was this neato golden color. I like keeping people guessing so one day, without warning, I chopped it all off.

I kept cutting it shorter and shorter and last week I cut it too short so I’ve had to go through another adjustment period. I’ve learned how to cope so it wasn’t nearly as terrible a phase as the Uglies but it was rough. My new best friend is the curling iron which has helped me find my place among my big-haired Texan brethren.

It’s also helped me find myself. I never thought I would be one of those big-haired people but here I am, embracing my hair with gusto. Every time I feel it bounce I gush with pride. So I realize, I’ve always been a big-haired person. That might not be ideal in this society where everything has to be straight and skinny and flat and in line but I really don’t give a damn because I have great hair.