Short Hair

For Halloween 2018, Gabe and I dressed up as Anthony and Cleopatra. For Halloween 2017, we had gone as Ron Stoppable and Kim Possible, and Gabe had actually bleached his hair to look the part. Last year I decided it was my turn to show that kind of commitment, so I chopped my hair off to go with the Cleopatra look.

It was a pretty big adjustment. I'd been getting into the high ponytail thing, and that was no longer an option. I had mixed feelings for a while, but then I started to like it. I've kept it at a touching-my-shoulders length ever since.

But no one else mentioned the haircut.

Then, around Christmas, I got a sudden wave of compliments. And that has continued through my writing this, on September 10, almost a year after the haircut.

People I see relatively regularly (or at least have seen in the last twelve months) will say, "Oh wow, did you get a haircut? I love it!" and I don't know what to say! XD It doesn't bother me in the slightest (who wouldn't want to spread out the kind compliments?!), but I wonder how/why it's happening?

I got a similar haircut—just touching the shoulders, slight layers—the day before my sixteenth birthday and I HATED it. It made me look like I was ten years old. It threatened to ruin my sweet sixteen (but then an ice storm knocked out the power for four days [as if I needed more reasons to switch my birthday] and my haircut suddenly seemed less devastating).

I had anticipated the same sinking regret in October of last year, but it just never came. I don't know if I should be happy or concerned that I now look old enough to have this haircut. Ha!

Anyway, while the haircut started as part of a costume, it has become part of the Me I am now. I know it's silly, but it feels right that a "big" style/look change sort of coincided with a wave of other lifestyle changes. I didn't do it on purpose, but I'm keeping it on purpose.

Or MAYBE the haircut triggered all other changes, the way Abigail's visit flipped the Tidy Switch? ;)

~Stephanie