I got my hair cut this week and instantly felt more like ‘me’. And it got me thinking about that concept, what it means to feel like yourself. I didn’t not feel like myself before the hair cut, or so I thought. In fact, I have loved growing out my hair, and can remember very distinct milestones along the way where I have felt very confident with longer hair, and like it compliments my personal style better than shorter hair. But as soon as I chopped it back off I went home feeling fully like myself. I had spent considerable time contemplating the idea of cutting my hair off again, as is always common I had got attached to having longer hair as was become precious about it. I looked at lots of old photos of myself, from the Summer I moved to London and back to the content I made while in Manchester, trying to weight up which style I liked best on me. Trying to pinpoint what has changed in my appearance that might make that hair length look a little different on me now as to how it looked then. A hugely narcissistic endeavour which didn’t exactly end in me feeling great about myself. Ultimately, I thought about how I would feel if I didn’t like it; miserable, slightly self conscious, a bit unwilling to take photos of myself. And how long would that last? Oh, a week at the absolute most!! And by then it would have grown a little bit anyway! So I went ahead and did it - and as I say, felt instantly better afterwards.
Now this might seem like a long rambling chat about a hair cut, but I can’t help but feel so many of you will relate? Feeling like ‘me’ is hugely important to our confidence - and something like a haircut can really send that totally sideways and have quite a (short term) negative impact. And I think the idea of what feels like ‘me’ is also hard to pinpoint. I think the shorter hair feels like ‘me’ because it seems more effortless. I never styled my hair when it was long, but there is something about the way you can run your hands through short hair and let it sit where it falls and blow dry it in record time, that makes it feel even more effortless. And that word, above all others, is what I want my style to reflect (even though this blog is essentially a huge chronicle to how much effort does go into it all!!).
