The perfect haircut

February 10, 2008

Sometimes you learn new things about yourself – things that you think that you would have known about yourself. Last summer, I discovered that my hair is wavy, not really curly but rather wavy.

Now, one might wonder how a 40 year old person doesn’t know that her hair is wavy. Apparently hair might actually be wavy but not look like it. My mom always said that my hair had a natural wave in it. But I could never see it. As far as I was concerned, my hair was fine, straight and had no body to it.

I started getting perms and body waves when I was 12. They never worked out the way that I wanted. My hair got frizzy and poofy, rather than having the great wavy spirals that I wanted. I still don’t know why even the “perfect” products didn’t make my hair do what my friends’ hair did. (But I’m not still bitter, in case you were starting to wonder.)

Then last summer, I discover the unimaginable… when it’s cut a certain way, my hair is wavy – really almost curly. And, when I have the right products and I scrunch it just right – it looks exactly like I have always wanted.

I’m one of those navel gazer people. I’m pretty self-aware. But still, there are things that I learn about myself. From the simple, like the fact that my hair is wavy, to the profound, like my friend telling me this week that I really need to stop putting everyone else before myself – we are always learning about ourselves.

The amusement in the hair revelation becomes a deepening of my understanding of myself.

I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within. ~Lillian Smith

As much as we grow outside, we need to grow within ourselves. The more we stretch to the sky, the more we need grounding. Our own growth is the anchor that connects us so that we can become who we want to be and live into our destiny.