Breezy Scalp

One blink. Then a second one. Pink lips forming a perfect ring. A textbook case of shock.

That was always the response I got when I revealed that I'd never cut my hair before. When I was younger, haircuts were a distant, magical experience "as seen on TV". Cartoons marketed to children always had the trademark episode "Sally-Jim-Rachel-Mike Gets Their First Haircut".

And everybody claps because it's such a milestone. And I clapped because it was something out of the Twilight Zone, like a town gone missing without a trace.

I, like many others, changed during the turbulence of middle school and the impulsivity that embodies high school. I tried makeup. I changed my wardrobe. But it was only when I was fifteen that I needed a true change, something that couldn't be wiped off if done wrong.

I was in a teenage rut of sorts when I decided to get a haircut. I thought I was depressed (I was not), I believed I had no friends (I had a handful of good ones), and I was tired of my boring appearance (Okay, I looked kinda boring).

When I asked my mother, a lovely, albeit prejudiced, Southern Baptist woman, to take me to get a haircut, she said it'd attract lesbians to me. Since that was her response I didn't dare ask my, also lovely, yet somehow even more prejudiced, father to pay for it. But I needed a haircut, and I sure as hell was going to get one. My general distaste for my appearance was festering into an unhealthy, fifteen-year-old's hate, so I was more determined than ever.

I pestered and pestered until, for the sake of their sanity, they let up and took me to the stylist to get a trim. Once we arrived, my mother left me with the hairdresser after proposing the cut she thought would suit me best. The hairdresser didn't agree, so, not asking my mother's permission first, I proposed that we cut it all off.

Needless to say, my poor mother was not very pleased. She would soon get over it, though, because, as the hairdresser said, I have a very pleasantly round head. Mom still pats it now.

Cutting my hair was an act of desperation rooted in teenage angst, but it's a decision I'll never regret. After I cut my hair, I never thought twice about going on a run because I knew washing my hair afterwards would only take a few minutes. I never felt uncomfortably sweaty during the Georgian summers because any moisture rolled right off my chrome dome.

But, in the end, those things hardly mattered. It was the first time I'd felt pretty during my teenage years, and, even now, with my hair slowly returning, I walk more confidently, I smile more brightly, and I don't spend every morning cursing the girl in the mirror. And I love my hair —even if I've got three girls' phone numbers and no idea how to flirt.