Today’s HAIRevolution post is by Kylie of Effervescence. (What’s the HAIRevolution?) She writes about her journey of self-discovery with her hair, coming to the conclusion that she was still her no matter how much she changed her hair. (Kind of like the truth that we are not what we look like, huh?)
I kind of love that both of the posts for the HAIRevolution so far were written by women who shaved their heads. But that’s just me being self-centered about my own supershort hair 
– you obviously don’t have to shave your head to have something to say about hair! (Read the first post in the project & submit your own post here!)
Enjoy!
♥
Shaving My Head. Finding My Self.
My hair was always my golden ticket. Or a change of hairstyle was.
For as long as I can remember, a haircut was the distance between the me I was and the me I wanted to be.
The week before seventh grade began, I cut my nearly waist-length hair into a “bob”. I convinced myself that it would be a sleek, silky fashion statement. I’d look like the models in Jane Magazine. Instead, my thick, bouncy locks expanded outward, and then farther out. I didn’t yet know about hair straighteners, so there was nothing to do but live with it. In my school photo that year, I looked very much like a human mushroom.
The expectations I piled atop my head grew heavier sophomore year of college, when I decided I wanted to date women instead of men. I cut off most of my hair and was left with an uncontrollably fluffy fauxhawk. The next day I flew across the country to my second year of college, straight into Being a Lesbian. Capitol B. Capitol L.
After that, it was a yearly flip-flop between long and short hair. First I wanted everyone to know, unequivocally, that I was queer. Cut off the hair. Then I wanted to defy stereotypes and pass for straight. Grow it out again.
And so on.
I truly never caught on that I was trying to make the haircuts into more than they were. I believed, wholeheartedly, that this surface level change had the power to transform me — all of me — into the outgoing, flirtatious, desirable person I wished I could be. Instead, after each cut, I was still me. With a haircut.
Finally, it started to feel like a lot of work to keep putting all this pressure on my hair to define who I was. I decided to buzz it all off, save for a fourth of an inch, and leave it that way. I’d shaved my head several times before, but never had I resisted growing it out again for more than a couple of months.
It’s funny the ways I’ve changed in the eight months since I gave up on changing my hair. I’ve become more myself. Not because my true self is someone with a shaved head, but because it’s my only choice now. I have nothing to hide behind. I don’t have the distraction of straightening my hair each morning. I can’t tell myself I’ll be different when the next haircut comes. I can only delve deeper into myself, and at the same time, share more of myself with the world than I ever did with my heavy curtain of hair.
People can see me now. And for the first time, I want to be seen, as I am, today. No haircut required.
Kylie Springman is a queer writer, photographer and empowerment coach focusing on the intricate art of liking ourselves. You can hang out with her on Twitter at @kyliewriteshere or read her weekly at www.kyliewrites.com. She coaches people, photographs them, and keeps her noggin neatly buzzed in Brooklyn.
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Kylie’s experience with her haircuts is similar to mine– we both realized we are not our hair(cuts). I especially love this part:
I can’t tell myself I’ll be different when the next haircut comes. I can only delve deeper into myself, and at the same time, share more of myself with the world than I ever did with my heavy curtain of hair.
I can’t wait to see what your hair journey has been like. Submit your own HAIRevolution post here!
