Short Cuts

It's funny how much a woman's self-confidence is tied up in her hair. If you are having a good hair day? You feel awesome. Even just a t-shirt and jeans makes you feel sexy. You are gorgeois. If you are having a bad hair day? The cutest outfit in the world will not make you feel pretty. It's all about the hair.

I've even noticed a difference in how customers respond to me at work based on how I have styled my hair. Ponytail? Meh. All down, like a blanket around my face? Meh. Half-up, half-down? More smiles, more small talk, more sales. Braided pigtails? They love me. "You look so cute with your hair like that," they'll say. "I just love your hair!" Braided pigtails it is, then! Besides, it means I can roll out of bed at the very last minute.

When I was little? Mom kept my hair short. Chin-length (or shorter) with blunt bangs. Possibly the worst haircut someone with a square face could have. And she would curl my bangs for special occasions, and my forehead would always get burned. Every. Time. The day Mom got married, when I was fiveish? I had a curling Iiron barrel-shaped burn so bad that it scabbed over. Thank goodness my fluff of hairsprayed bangs covered it for the pictures! To this day, I cannot see a curling iron without getting a little nervous.

As a teen and now adult [Yeah, I think you better put that in quotes.] okay, "adult," I have kept my hair long, no bangs, with a few, sometimes disastrous exceptions. I get bored, I get the urge to get it cut, I pore over hairstyle magazines, looking for one shortish cut that will look perfect on me. I usually got it wrong. I would leave the hair salon with a smile plastered on my face so the stylist wouldn't feel bad. After all, they had given me what I asked for. But I would hate it and feel ugly until it started to grow out.

Summers in the South? Will make you yearn for short hair no matter how bad it looks on you. Around the end of May, I was dying to get my hair cut. I made the appointment. I perused magazines. Glamour came to me in the mail with an article titled, "The Haircut That Will Change Your Life." Yessss. It was like an omen.

I chose my haircut, but I was nervous. It was a bit shorter than I wanted to go. It had bangs. There were opportunities for disaster. But when I showed my hairdresser? She gasped. "Megan, I love that! It is so cute!" Sold.

And she was right. It is cute. I love it. My history with short cuts? Rewritten. And I am so saving that magazine picture.