When I was a young child, way back in the 70’s, I had a doll called Sheena who had “magic hair”! By that I mean you could make her hair grow long just by gently pulling on her ponytail and slowly turning a wheel located on her back. Said long hair could then also be shortened by the reverse process, i.e. slowly turning the wheel in the opposite direction and feeding the ponytail back inside her head. Now that I’ve made the monumental decision to grow my hair long again how I wish that I could do a similar thing :-) The average monthly hair growth is supposed to be approximately 1/2 inch which means it feels like its going to take simply ages to reach any sort of REAL length. Instead of seeing it as still short I suppose I should realise that compared to where I started it has grown a lot. In fact most people have remarked favourably on my “new look” which seems to imply to me that not many people “approved” of my shorn locks. I have to confess that feeling it blow in the wind is a strange experience and having to spend more than 5 minutes washing it is also an indication of its progress to date and yet my inherent lack of patience is nipping at my heels reminding me of just HOW LONG it seems to be taking before it looks obvious that my hair has grown! Even in its current state its still too short to be styled and equally I hate the idea of having any of it cut even if it is to make it tidy as it feels like a giant step backwards. My daughter is like “Just let it GROW”!
I think this time around is probably the first time I’ve grown it long just for me. Last time it was to please my now Ex as he, like most men, preferred women with their hair longer than the average short crop. In fact my decision to go short came after my divorce as a kind of two fingered salute to him even though by then he probably didn’t care what I did to it. The shaved look came several years later following an evening watching people get ready for Stars in their Eyes where a young woman played Sinead O’Connor. I sat watching them shave off her hair in awe and thought I wonder what that would look like on me? Next time the hairdresser came calling I got her to shave it under the guise that “It will soon grow…” and many years later here I am deciding to let it grow back even though I always said I couldn’t ever imagine growing my hair long again. I’m really hoping that I’ll like the longer style and if so will get some red highlights put in to give it some zing! My hair by default is dead straight, fine with very little body to it and needs to see a perming bottle before it will even condescend to veer off the straight and narrow into luscious curls. Although long hair is a flexible style and I love many of the “posh do-ups” such as French plaits and pleats, I have never been able to get that look with my own hair, I couldn’t even manage French braids on my daughter when she was younger so I do worry a tad that it will end up in the same boring clipped back at each side style that it used to be in. I shall have to make a concerted effort to stop that and maybe keep the length just long enough for a decent ponytail but not too long that it becomes unruly every time I step foot outside the front door. I’m also going for a side parting and no fringe this time, something I’ve never had before with long hair so hopefully it will make me look less childish than maybe its looked in the past. Failing that I’ll have to get one of my daughter’s friends who is training to be a hairdresser to give me some tips! All in all I relish the challenge of letting it grow and watching it change over each month, hopefully into something I can live with and adapt to suit me, for me.
Here's my gawgus daughter Julia with two of new best mates from Writtle College, Kirsty on the far left, and Alex in the middle.
This chap standing here with yours truly is none other than Shaun Ellis, the wolf man who at one point lived with a pack of wolves at Combe Martin Wildlife and Dinosaur Park in North Devon.
Have had a bit of a radical re-think about the old barnet after I had a minor accident with the clippers a couple of months ago. Having run the clipper over the front top of my head once and even twice, I marvelled at the amount of hair laying in the bath and then with abject horror realised too late that I had forgotten to put the comb on and had more or less shaved my hair right down to the quick :-( What could I do but finish the job and hope that the mickey taking at work didn't get too out of hand until it grew back again. Fortunately several of my male colleagues had on occasion made a similar mistake and so were fairly understanding and the rest either didn't notice or just chose not to comment. Within a week it was back to its normal, albeit short length but that one forgetful moment made me wonder if after 5+ years of shaving my hair it was time to go for something longer. Now that I have made that decision I've been trawling the net looking for some ideas and have gone from the thought of having normal short hair again to something far more challenging, along the lines of the image above.
