Frivolity and vanity
Feb. 28th, 2004 02:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegkerrI am contemplating my hair with a mixture of fondness, dissatisfaction, and exasperation. My hair is quite long, almost waist length, which is rather unusual for a forty-plus year old woman. Who works in a law office, no less. I gave up perming it years ago, reasoning that I should learn to love my hair for what it is, not make it what it is not. I have worn it long most of my life. Occasionally, every four or five years, I will give it a drastic chin length chop, but then I'll start growing it right back. It's very easy: I just wash it and let it air dry. I don't even own a hair dryer. I don't have bangs. I don't like the touch of hair on my face, and my forehead (even in my forties) is so oily that they would be greasy strings. I've put it up various ways during my life, braided it, used hair sticks. For the last year or so, I've resorted to the easiest possible solution: I comb it back severely and bind it in a hair twistie. Very simple.
And, I've become forced to admit, looking at recent photographs of myself, rather unflattering. Stark. Maybe it's just age, I think critically, staring at those photographs and feeling fretful. Or is it the hairstyle? Sure, it's easy, but I hear a small whisper inside myself say, am I really that ugly?
I've always had a vague feeling that my keeping my hair long, I was in a way registering a sort of protest. My long hair is part of who I am. I am resisting corporate sausage-making by keeping it long. Other women over thirty may chop their hair off, maybe diminishing of their sexuality, but not me, by gum. But I look at those photographs and think, if that's what I'm protesting, it's not working very well.
Is it time to really give my mental self-image a shock, shake myself up? Can I accept new images of myself? Get it cut short like Kij and make it spike up with gel, cut it shoulder length, but in layers, with maybe a purple streak? Or what? (And if I have to get it cut more often, where the hell would I get the money in my airtight budget?)
So I stare at photos and fret. I don't have an answer yet.
And, I've become forced to admit, looking at recent photographs of myself, rather unflattering. Stark. Maybe it's just age, I think critically, staring at those photographs and feeling fretful. Or is it the hairstyle? Sure, it's easy, but I hear a small whisper inside myself say, am I really that ugly?
I've always had a vague feeling that my keeping my hair long, I was in a way registering a sort of protest. My long hair is part of who I am. I am resisting corporate sausage-making by keeping it long. Other women over thirty may chop their hair off, maybe diminishing of their sexuality, but not me, by gum. But I look at those photographs and think, if that's what I'm protesting, it's not working very well.
Is it time to really give my mental self-image a shock, shake myself up? Can I accept new images of myself? Get it cut short like Kij and make it spike up with gel, cut it shoulder length, but in layers, with maybe a purple streak? Or what? (And if I have to get it cut more often, where the hell would I get the money in my airtight budget?)
So I stare at photos and fret. I don't have an answer yet.