to be respected,
reckoned with,
and reconciled to,
but it cannot be controlled any more than atomic fusion.
Occasionally, it can be cajoled into becoming conduct
(we refer to these lapses as 'good hair days')
but it can never be coerced.
Think of all the money, time, creative energy,
and emotion we invest in our hair.
Yet most of the time it insist on expressing its authenticity,
not necessarily ours...
Most of us exist under a collective hallucination Naomi Wolf calls
We have all been brainwashed
into believing that if we can just get the right
shampoo, conditioner, perm, color, and cut,
our hair will finally behave like that of the women
in the display professions
-television, film, and fashion-
who, by the way, do not style their own hair."
I know that I've been brainwashed.
I mean, just look at the princesses we grew up with
and their perfect hair.
I saw this great article on buzz feed,
and what their hair would actually look like in real life.
It made me feel a whole lot better.
Ariel, unrealistic
Ariel, realistic...and if that's her hair out of the water, you know what hair underwater the water looks like, right? Not glamorous like the movie, it's everywhere, all over your face and in your eyes, all tangled...
Belle, unrealistic
no one's fly-a-ways look that amazing.
Belle, realistic
And no one's hair looks like that unless you've got a lot of hair spray and ratting. And fly-a-ways getting stuck in your lipgloss.
Cinderella, unrealistic. No one ever wakes up with hair that amazing. Like in the movies when women take off their wigs and their hair is perfect, yeah no.
Cinderella, realistic.
Here is a picture of my hair when it was short.
I used to wake up looking like a cockatoo.
Jasmine, unrealistic.
Jasmine, realistic. No one has that kind of volume not without an exorbitant amount of extensions.
Pocahontas, unrealistic.
Pocahontas, realistic.
Hair, flying everywhere.
And now you have Elsa and Rapunzel! Did you know that they had more animated strands of hair for Elsa than Rapunzel? The normal human head has 100,000 strands, and Elsa has 420,000 strands.
Impossible standards.
"Hair humbles us,
and we need to make peace with it.
The way we do this is to accept it and acknowledge its personality:
whether it's thick or thin, coarse or fine, straight or curly;
the way it breaks when permed, is getting gray,
or insists on parting down the middle.
Getting to know your hair and working with it
instead of constantly fighting it
is the first step toward rapprochement and peace of mind...
If you're currently unhappy with your hair,
start patiently searching for pictures of hairstyles you like
and bring those pictures to a hair stylist...
Have a conversation about the reality of your hair
versus your fantasy about your hair.
Consider the time you are willing to spend working with it every day...
See if you can't arrive at some middle ground that will make you happier...
Be open to change because there are few joys in life
that can equal finally finding a becoming hair style.
And if the worst happens,
after you dry your eyes,
remember it's only hair.
It will grow again and you will have become wiser.
Above all, learning to accept your hair
is part of the process of learning to love yourself."
It has taken me YEARS to make peace with my hair.
I am glad that I look great in a pixie and in long hair...
I'm not so glad that it takes forever for the pixie to grow out
to get to the long hair.
I still try new things,
like I've been trying to figure out how to get soft beach wave curls.
I swear, in just a week my hair has grown more than it has in a month.
Also remember that you can get your vitamins in food, and that your body can only store a certain amount, so you'll end up peeing out whatever your body can't hold.
Just wanted to clarify.
I've come to love my hair,
and I hope you can learn to love yours too,
if you don't already.
***
Gratitude Journal
***
1) Hot water and showers. There is seriously nothing more comforting and wonderful.
2) Watching tv in bed with Robbie. Frasier is hilarious, it's nice to laugh together.
3) The Shark Vacuum. I got our room completely clean, nothing coming up. It feels so good.
4) Monday is over.
5) It was a lazy day, after a busy weekend. Thank goodness.
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