The Fault In Our Hair

Previously on my blog I have sung praise for the book The Fault In Our Stars.

A movie adaption for this book is in the works and the lead actress, Shailene Woodley, is cutting off a lot of her beautiful hair in order to play the role of Hazel. She is donating her hair to a charity which develops wigs for children who suffer from cancer. Read her blog post here.

My mother had extremely long, curly hair when she was younger. Growing up, my sister was blessed with bouncy, effortless curls, and I, blessed with a viscous, long, messy mane. To put it in focus, my sister is the Sansa, I am the Ayra. (If Sansa had nice short hair and Ayra, long awful hair)

My hair has been long my entire life. Growing up, it just grew and grew and grew. And I loved it. but that wasn't because I associated it with beauty, either. I couldn't care less. I didn't think I was very much a princess for having long hair, or I was pretty because of it, I felt - in a weird way - strong. Shailene picks up on this in her blog post. Growing your hair feels like an act of defiance, an act of strength. My younger self saw this messy, long, unruly hair as a trademark.  Having hair nearly down to my knees made me feel like I had a strong identity. I guess, it's just always been a way of empowering myself. Anything to make me feel more like a lioness.

Now that I am older, and exposed to the unfairness of beauty standards, I don't so much see it it as an act of strength. It's unfair and untrue that having long typically feminine hair makes you in any way more an attractive female. Hair is great, regardless of what it looks like - I've noticed that. Regardless of it's thickness, whether it's straight or curly, the length, the style, the color - it's great. Because it's an identity in it's self.  The way the person plays with their hair, the way the person's hair bounces when they walk, the way it tuck's behind someone's ears, the way it feels, what it looks like with a hat on, it's GREAT. And totally unique to that person. SO let me tell you now, whatever your hair looks like, whatever you may feel about it...I can assure you, you rock it.

Hair also changes. And grows.

Let's detract from hair for a second, and focus on something else. Recently I've been thinking about what I really want at the moment in life and I realized, at the core, I just want to grow. Grow as a human, grow as an artist, encourage growth in others.  In order to grow, I think you have to dare to try the new. Be unapologetic and brave and strong and challenging.

 I used to see my hair as strength, as my image. Now, I see the freedom of losing it and daring myself to feel strong in other ways as my TRUE image.

So,  I am deciding to join in on hairforhazel, and cutting 8 inches of my hair off.

To quote Shailene, ''there was a time when growing my hair out symbolized something for me, but the power of sharing that choice, sharing the ability to have long hair with someone feels far more powerful right now.''