The long and the short of it

Come on girls, we all know it – our hair is our crowning glory. We have good hair days and bad hair days. On good hair days, we let it all hang out. But on bad hair days, we try to hide it under a hat.

I love long hair: hair I can pull up into an interesting knot on the top of my head; a few wispy bits falling around my face look good too; as do long blond locks that you can tie back into a pony tail or even plait. You can wear a peaked hat over any style and it looks great.

I’d been growing my hair for over a year. It came right down over my shoulders and down my back. No matter how often I had it trimmed, it never seemed to sit the way I wanted it. And If ever I did manage to pull it up into an interesting knot, you could forget about the wispy bits falling cutely around my face, because within seconds the whole lot would let loose.

No matter how I treated it or what I used. My hair never sat still. It frizzed up, it frizzed down. It even frizzed way out. Neither a blow drier nor a straightening iron did the trick. My hair always has a mind of its own.

And then there are the knots. A bit of wind and my hair is like a bird’s nest – the longer the hair, the bigger the nest. Trying to remove the knots is a massive task. When I pulled and yanked, not only would the knots give way, but also massive tusks of hair.

One day it all became too much and I decided to go shorter – but not quite as short as it turned out.

“Now I want a shorter bob, but not too short”, I explained to the hairdresser. But I don’t want it cut too sharply up the back of my neck”. I then showed him a photo of how I would like to look, or should I say how I would like my hair to look.

He proceeded to cut my hair at the back.

“Good God!”, I thought. “He’s cutting that a bit short”. It seemed up above my ears. “But I’m sure he knows what he’s doing”. The sides he left long.

Finally the cut was finished and he danced all around the salon proclaiming how wonderful and stylish my hair was. “It’s just sooo modern”, he exclaims at his incredible talent. “And just suits you sooo much”. And then he showed me every obtuse and hideous angle.

I gasp in horror and before I realised I had said “I don’t like it”. I was on the verge of tears. I do believe he was too. “How can you not like it?”, he exclaimed in disbelief.

“Maybe if we cut the sides shorter so that they are more in line with the back?”, I tried to smooth things over.

“Oh well! If we must”, was the curt response.

The sides became shorter and shorter. “Now that’s better”, I continue. “Now instead of the fringe being straight across how about we blend it into the side bits?”.

And somehow in this process, my hair became exceptionally short. I realised that if we continued down this path, I would end up with very little hair at all.

“It’s much better”, I said. “Thank you very much for your time and your patience”.

I paid the bill and hurriedly left the salon.

And that’s the story of how I came to have very short hair. And would you believe I loved it!

Have you had a big haircut like this? What happened? And did you like it? Tell us below.