Saturday, June 11, 2011

Tangled

Many people have some physical feature that becomes iconic. For Frida Khalo it was her bushy eyebrows and braids. Harry Potter has his scar. For me, it has become my curly hair.

I used to straighten my hair everyday because, you see, at the turn of the century curly hair was a flash-back to the 80's. Definitely not cool. Then came the day that I threw convention aside, switched roles with my husband and flew my family to New York for medical school. I quickly realized that the humidity and my busy schedule made flat-ironing impractical. So I started letting my hair go curly, but it has meant more to me than that. In a funny way, I feel it now embodies my personality . . . the side I usually try to hide from people. Tousled, disorganized, anxious, free-spirited, and even a bit rebellious at times, I find myself secretly satisfied at the defiance of rocking curly hair next to all of my straight-haired counterparts.

With this in mind, however, it is no surprise that I straighten my hair at times when I'm feeling particularly insecure.

As I sat flat-iron in hand, I heard Ashton crawl out of bed. He lay down next to me and, with a bit of attitude, said, "What are you doing THAT for?"
"I'm using this to make my hair straight."
"The other way looks better," he retorted.
With a bit of annoyance in my own voice I answered, "You think so?"
"Why do you EVEN HAVE that thing?"
"Ashton, I've had it for years. I used to straighten my hair all the time."
There was a pause. "Why didn't you buy a PINK one?"
"Because this is the only color they had . . . "

With all of his sass, at least I know he loves the "real" me. :)

2 comments:

Rosemary said...

We all do!

Holly said...

Curly hair is gorgeous! Always wished I had it, or at least had hair that would do something besides being bone-straight. Love your hair!