On Becoming
When I was growing up there was a woman at church who always dressed beautifully. She never followed fashion trends. She wore long full skirts when short skirts were in style. She wore knee high boots when ankle boots were all the rage. And yet all of her clothes blended together into one beautiful whole. She was classy and I admired her for that. I decided I wanted to be like that. I want to be someone who always looks classy without looking trendy.
Recently I’ve come to express this with my hair. It has grown long. Right now it reaches the middle of my back, which is as long as it has ever been. I’m hoping it grows even longer. But just having really long hair isn’t enough. For me, the point of having long hair is the fun hairstyles I can do. Because of this, and because I can’t stand my hair getting in the way, I usually braid my hair and pin it up. This is easy for me to do, and probably takes less time than the blowdrying and styling that other women do, but it looks really impressive. I frequently get comments asking me if I do my hair myself. I love that, because it means I’ve succeded. Putting my hair up for the day makes me feel a connection to generations of women before me who did the same. Short hair on women has only been acceptable for about 90 years.
In short, I feel myself becoming the person I dreamed of being. That makes me glad. And maybe at church there is another young girl who will watch me and make similar decisions for herself, but express them in her own way. That would make me glad too.