Reflections

So guess what I did...



I got a haircut.

You know how I've been talking about cutting my hair since, oh, the beginning of September? Remember when I got permission from the head of my program and the head of the costume department? Remember how I even had a poll on here a while back to see what my readers thought?

And how I kept pushing it back, questioning it, over-analyzing it, and backing out?

Well, I cut it. Finally.

Not the "Audrey Hepburn Roman Holiday" style that I was originally considering. Not that drastic, no. But if you take into account how much of my life has been spent with long hair, this is still a significant transformation for me. Far more than dying my hair last March.

I needed a change. I needed something different. Maybe to reflect that the person on the inside isn't the same.

More than anything, I think I just needed to stop being afraid.

I got it cut yesterday. My head feels lighter. I think my face and neck look even heavier than they did before. But in general, I think I like it. I still look like me. I just look like a new version of me. Maybe a more serious version. Maybe one who has matured.

Maybe it's just that for the first time in a long time I'm looking in the mirror and having to really take myself in.

Have you ever noticed that after awhile, you stop seeing the people you're around regularly? You look at them, but you don't really see who they are or how they've changed. But if you go a year without seeing them, they look so different.

I think that's how things started to go with me. I stopped seeing myself. My progress. My metamorphosis. The fact that who I am now is not who I was a year ago. The fact that although my hair has been the same length since college, I have not been the same me.

I am not the girl in my headshots. I am not the girl fretting about graduate school. I am not the girl who was so obsessed with completing her mediocre NaNoWriMo novel. I am not the girl who Brian said he was in love with. And I am not the girl who sat by waiting for life to come find her.

I guess in some ways I'm that girl. I will always be her a little. For after all, though I've changed, I am still fundamentally me. But I'm so much more now than I was before.

And when I looked in the mirror this morning, I think I finally saw a change in what was reflecting back at me. Something was different enough that I finally stopped and paid attention.

I don't look like a college girl anymore. I almost look like an adult. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet. I think I'm okay with it.

I don't look the way I want to, but at least I'm not trying to hide that from myself anymore. I'm not looking in the mirror and pretending that I see myself as I once was. I can't hide behind my hair the way I've been doing for the last 2 years.

And you know what? That's fine. Unlike Jo in Little Women, my hair was not my only beauty.

I can be beautiful without it. And I don't need other people to tell me that in order for me to believe it.



So without further ado, I present to you the new me. Not as I want you to think of me, but as I truly am.









(Me, my Aunt, and my Mom. This is the first time we can remember that I've had shorter hair than either of them. 11/29/08)


May you have the guts to see yourself as you are.
And may the person that you are be similar to the person you want to be.


~A~