An Ordinary Life (with just that little bit extra...)

My hair have always been, well, long. No, now I am lying. When I was about seven I got really angry at my sister. For no apparent reason really - I was just an angry child. With middle-child syndrome. Anyway, I was standing in the bathroom door, again, for no apparent reason, and a blinding anger came over me. I grabbed my waist-length hair in my two very chubby, fat-fingered hands before I screamed at the top of my lungs: "I am so angry, I just want to... to cut off my hair!!" I felt at the time that by cutting off my hair the raging anger inside me will be put out and I will be able to live a normal anger-free life. Maybe my mother had the same train of thought as she put me wordlessly in her car and drove me to the nearest hairdressers. I looked like a boy for a very long time (in child-years 3 or so months is like a millennium). The only thing that made me look remotely like a girl was the stud-earrings I had.

Between the ages of 7 and 13 I never had a haircut, nothing professional whatsoever. My mother would trim off the ends with one of those old, heavy metal granny-scissors that needs both hands to operate and every once in a while she would also trim my fringe just as it is starting to curl outward over my eyebrows. When I was 12 I ran myself into a little trouble. I was a prefect in primary school (you know, the nerdy, goody two shoes, brain box, teacher's pet) and my fringe was super-long. I tried to get the side-swept look, but it was too short to tuck in behind my ear and too long to comply with school rules. As a result, you guessed it, I got told off. How shameful! So I ask my best friend to cut my fringe. In the Maths class. When the teacher was not looking. Every time a question was done on the green chalkboard, we had a mere couple of seconds before he w ould turn and glare at us again. For half an hour we snipped, paid attention when he looked, and tried to look innocent all at the same time. By the time the bell rang, my fringe length was out of the danger zone AND I did something naughty - I did not give my full attention in class. Scandalous!
I got smiles all day - which was a first for me. Even the most popular kids were very friendly - even
noticed the new fringe. Wow! I must look good with all this attention!

When I arrived home that afternoon, I wanted to admire my mate's handiwork. Low and behold, to my horror I saw what can only be described as an 'asymmetrical, eclectic look' as my poor fringe took on a zig-zagged shape. Horrified, I grabbed my blunt-nosed scissors and carefully aligned my fringe between my index and middle fingers, pulled it down over my forehead to where I could see and snipped it straight. I repeated the process first to the left and again to the right until I evened out all signs of a possible zig-zag. Relieved, I went to greet my parents that just came home from work.

Neither of them said a word about my fringe, apart from: "Who cut your hair?" that was followed by
an endearing grin. They left it at that when I announced proudly that I did it myself. I wish that they said something that day (not fifteen years later) as the next morning when I arrived at school people started pointing and laughing (this was my first clue that I looked funny). I rushed to the girls' toilets in search of a mirror and discovered the reason behind the pointing and laughing: my fringe was now only one and a half centimetres long after it has dried overnight (I washed it the night before) and sticking in all directions! I just wanted the earth to swallow me whole. I put my duty cap on and went to do my duty. When the bell went I pretend to have forgotten the cap was still on my head. One boy though it would be funny to run past me where we were lined up just before the teachers arrived to escort us to our first lesson and yank the cap off my head. The pointing and laughing started again. I pretended to laugh along; bright tomato-red and very embarassed. My worst
nightmare came true as on that fateful day was also the day when a professional photographer came into school to take the annual individual photo's for the yearbook... I still have that photo. It is framed and sits on my mother's dressing table... Oh the shame! (Just so you know, that afternoon I took a bunch of hair just after my fringe and cut me a new, longer fringe. A 'deep fringe' look less funny than a 'miniature fringe' just FYI...)

x . x . x

Back to the original story. I learnt my lesson when it comes to cutting my hair myself. On the 1st of October 1997 I've made up my mind: I wanted to change. I was tired of getting bullied. Tired of being the fat girl whose ballet teacher refers to as "the elephant with male hormones". Just sick and tired of being a nobody. So I did what I do when I got angry and frustrated - I cut my hair (professionally this time). My waist-length hair, became jaw-length hair according to the latest fashion and being the new rebel I coloured it as well (and it is against school rules!). It felt liberating. Finally people treated me differently as I was taking pride in my appearance. Gone was the washed out, split end, sun-bleached hair and instead an inner beauty was about to surface from deep within the depths of my soul. My spirit is starting to awaken. Starting to be that little extra-ness I've so long been longing for.

An Ordinary Life (with just that little bit extra...)

Friday, 4 January 2013

Step 1: Cut hair

My dreams