I first noticed changes in my hair a year and a half ago. Covid. I lost a lot of hair, and my hair became fragile and splitting up the shaft. My hair was a mess, if it was down on my shoulders and pitiful if it were up in an anemic bun.  Last July, I was hopeful the sacrificial four inches would make a difference But it continued to break. I’ve learned over the last nine months this is a trifecta of menopause, genetics, and Covid. 

But once upon a time. . .

When I was young I would commemorate changes—break ups—with new hairstyles. Buzz cuts,bangs or layers, or a new color. The more dysfunctional the thing was the bolder the move:   “Goddamn you [insert person of the year who did me wrong] I’ll show you, I’ll just cut off all my. Hair!” Pretty dramatic stuff to rend one’s hair. I must have been channeling my inner fallen woman being shuttled off to the nunnery. My hair shorn over another failed relationship. Bold and overly dramatic, considering the people who drove me change it all up were hardly worth the effort.

I’m mostly at peace about cutting my hair next Thursday. Up until this past decade, I was never one to have the same hairstyle. I’ve felt no urge or aesthetic need to change my hair. This is the first time I’ve contemplated a new hair style. Before I allowed my hair to grow I was never afraid to do things with my hair. I had pink bits and half a shaved head in the early 80’s, a giant mullet type thing with a spiral perm a’la Robert Smith  in the late 80’s and yes, mall bangs and a long bob in the 90’s. I did resist the C-cut in the early aught, but caved to a regrettible inverted “Karen” bob as my hair was growing out from my last buzz cut in 2009. 

But…

This go round feels different, to begin with I’m not mourning the loss of a lover. Quite the opposite; this year seems to be about renewal and discovery. Because “there is no accounting for happiness”.

But yet…

I don’t want to look like every other sixty-something woman. My bigger irrational fear:  I’ll be confused with women who cope with invisibility by giving up on their femininity. What if cutting away my hair, cuts away my penchant for MILFy clothing and mid thigh skirts? Will I suddenly prefer Talbot’s pantsuits and dresses just to the bottom of my knees?  

Next Thursday, my fragile and wispy hair will be just long enough for me to tuck behind my ears and I’ll have bangs to ruffle and grab when I’m perplexed. It spent hours looking for this style and I don’t think I’ve chosen husbands or lovers as carefully as I have this haircut. The beautiful irony,  I didn’t find my ’do on the web but in my photos. I had this perfect bob when I was 40. But I’m not taking that picture in because when she turns me around in the chair and I face the mirror, all I want to notice is my new style created from a web photo. When she turns me around in the chair and I face the mirror, I don’t want the first thing I notice is an absence of unlined skin and a generous mouth. Comparison will rob my joy.

But then…

What if cutting off my hair is cutting away the dead and broken bits of me? What if it’s part of this healing journey I’ve been on this past nine months? 

And boom there’s the joy…

 I believed the stories. . .

My sister repeatedly told me I was ugly; my father’s summation I was a lazy chatterbox, and my mother with her endless disappointments wrought by me. My mother had a lot of energy about most of what I did, didn’t do, wore, didn’t wear, and my hair. She had me convinced my hair was “too thin to do much of anything” so I rarely wore it long and when I did she would sigh her comments. The only time she didn’t seem to mind my shoulder length hair was during my pregnancies. 

Once I left my 30’s she was sighing again because my hair was getting too long for a “woman my age”. Despite living almost 1000 miles from her and seeing her twice or three times a year, I kept my hair short until I didn’t. I waited until a few months after she died and decided it was time to allow my boyishly short hair to make way to my earlobes… and then my chin…and then the base of my neck until it graced the middle of my back. I loved my hair, I loved the fact I proved her wrong that a woman “my age” looks good with long hair. It was a big victory the first time I had to stand up in front of my stylist to finish off the ends.  It was so monumental I wrote a really bad poem about it. Fortunately, the poem is nowhere to be found.

I no longer stand for my haircuts and my hair is no longer in the middle of my back because it is simply too fine, and too thin. My hair has inched its way up to the base of my neck. Next week, it will grace my earlobes. I’m almost embarrassed to admit I’ve wept over this change in my hair. Such a vain thing to cry as if I had been diagnosed with a dire cancer requiring treatment that will render me bald.