Do It Myselfer

Some of you may remember that, a few haircuts ago, Jonathan added the accessory to my long layered hairstyle. I have been pretty happy with the accessory aside from a few days where it insisted on flipping out to the side, weirdly.

I went in for a cut about a month ago, and at that time, I did my usual shuffling, stomping, whining, threatening to shave my head routine and Jonathan, once again, calmly steered me away from the brink of hair suicide. He trimmed and reshaped the long layers, but decided not to trim the accessory this time as he felt it was at a good length.

A few days ago, I decided the accessory was too long.

I can’t afford to see Jonathan this month, which is probably a good thing, since my hair hasn’t been behaving well in this humidity and one of these days Jonathan’s going to get sick of my whining and bitching and will refuse to do my hair. So instead, in typical Lorie fashion, I have been OBSESSED with the length of the accessory.

I constantly separated it from the rest of my hair and pulled it out in front of my face to see how long it was. I called it foul names when attempting to get it smooth and nearly straight with a giant round brush instead of its preferred Charlie Bucket look. I called it more foul names when it fell out of its ponytail and didn’t tuck behind my ear just exactly the way I liked it.

On Monday, I decided to trim it myself.

It’s been a long time since I put a pair of scissors anywhere near my own head. Jonathan’s been cutting my hair for I think four years now, and for as long as I’ve been seeing him I have trusted his wisdom and expertise, and I have cared for my hair exactly the way he suggests, and I have not snipped even a tiny bit of it on my own.

The last time my hair was this long was my freshman year of college. Back then, I had to French braid it (I know, shut up) before every band performance. I have never been very good at the French braid and in high school, I always had someone else to do it for me. But, as with so many other things, when I got to college I was on my own. So I learned to braid my own hair, upside down and backwards, which is the only way I can do it today so thank goodness French braids aren’t in style anymore. But more often than not, I’d get down to the middle of my back with the braid and I’d go to wrap a ponytail holder around the end and I’d notice that I’d missed a noticeable piece of hair.

Rather than taking the time to unbraid and rebraid it, I’d grab a pair of scissors and cut that bitch off at the scalp.

And then a while later I cut my hair to my shoulders, and one day I was getting a trim and my stylist was like, what the hell? and asked me if I knew why I had all these random short curly pieces of hair. I did actually know why they were there and I was totally yelled at for cutting my own hair like that.

I know Jonathan wouldn’t put up with that crap, and I feared he’d be mad at me if I tried to trim the accessory myself and messed it up. So it actually took me a few days to work up the courage to go through with it, but on Monday morning while getting ready for work I pulled the accessory straight and snipped off about a half-inch of it, trying hard to follow the original angle.

It’s much more manageable now, but I’ve been feeling really guilty about it, which is ridiculous. I keep thinking that at the end of the month when I go back to see Jonathan, he’ll notice something different about the accessory and he’ll ask me and I’ll confess and he’ll scold me.

And I really don’t want the guy who’s taken such good care of my hair for longer than I’ve ever managed to keep a boyfriend to get upset with me for fucking up my own hair.