Day 77

The other day I found my favorite reader of this blog. Unfortunately, they posted their comment anonymously,  so we will just have to refer to them as "Anny". 

Anywho, after a recent post Anny commented to tell me what he/she wanted to hear more about from that post! This is why Anny is now my super-hero and the rest of you are currently at epic side-kick level. 

They say a picture is worth a hundred trillion words. In my case, many more words than that are necessary to tell the story that Anny has requested. That story is the history of my hair. I've decided to let the pictures do most of the talking, and I will just insert some explanations in the captions. Brace yourself, this is not a paved road.

I was born with a head full of hair. I had my first haircut at exactly 6 months. This is what my hair looked like by 1 year.

At 4 years old I clearly remember going into my mom's room and telling her that I wanted long hair like Barbie's. I had that thought firmly planted in my head for several years. During these years, there was a battle waged every time anyone wanted to do absolutely anything to my hair. Don't let this sweet little lady look fool you. I was a serious fighter when it came to my golden locks. 

Seeing as I was born in '88 and raised in the early 90's, my early childhood was haunted by the bangs. Anyone from the same era knows what I am talking about. If not, then refer to the above picture as exhibit A. I didn't mind the bangs on reasons of fashion at the time. No, my hatred of the bangs was directly tied to the fact that my nose reacted to my mom's hairspray similarly to how most people react to pepper spray. Let me tell you, the bangs did not naturally defy gravity in that strange manner.

By 4th grade I had rid myself of the bangs. My hair went through a stage where it randomly decided to be a couple shades darker. 

5th grade marked the beginning of a rougher part of my life. It was also the first time that I figured out that even when I didn't feel in control in other parts of my life, I could always control my hair. So, I made the decision to cut it dramatically. One friend at school literally freaked out and chased me around the classroom making threats when I came to school the next day. I still have no idea why she was more attached to my hair than I was.

Aww, we enter 6th grade, where the seriously awkward phase really takes off. I didn't do much with my hair, because it just seemed to take too long. Most of my hair's time from here until high school was spent in a ponytail. I also rebelled and dyed my hair pink at one point and turquoise a different time. (Un)fortunately I do not have photographic evidence of either of these events. 

7th grade I went with layers. This is about the only picture where they are taken care of, though. I didn't particularly care.

8th grade. The perm. This was done in my grandma's kitchen. I remember that I thought the fumes were going to kill me dead right there. My inspiration for this was my best friend's hair. Tressa has naturally curly hair and I've always thought it was beautiful.

After the perm, I started to keep my hair down more. I began to actually try and take care of it. This led to the obvious next step...

I got sick of trying to do stuff with my hair and just chopped it. This was also the short skinny phase of my teenage years, right at the beginning of my freshman year of high school, so this just got my hair out of the way for being athletic.

After I began to gain the weight back and other things happened in my life, I once again decided that I could at least control my hair. I kept this one for two years, until I realized that my brother and I had the exact same hair cut. This was not okay.

By my 16th birthday, I had grown my hair out a little bit and decided that a modern mullet was really fun. I was business in the bangs, organized chaos in the back.

I gradually continued shortening my hair length through the rest of high school. By the time I graduated, I had achieved what I called a "hedgehog" look on the back of my hair.

I continued on with variations of the hedgehog look for a few years out of high school. It was great, except after it got wet, as demonstrated here.

After I really couldn't cut my hair any shorter, I discovered hair dye. It was love at first damage. This was when things started picking up speed in the crazy department.

I figured out that my hair held red really well. If I attempted a normal shade of red, it would come out fire engine red every time. I also decided to grow my hair out.

The first time I moved away from home, I decided I was sick of the red that I could not seem to get rid of. So, I went platinum. I've made better decisions in my life.

As if the bleach wasn't bad enough, by my 20th birthday I had decided that the slight wave in parts of my hair could be coerced to work with me if I only used enough of the right kind of products labeled "for curly hair". I was lying to myself and was only rewarded with straw-like scary scarecrow hair.

My co-workers/ roommates in Jackson Hole decided it was time for an intervention. A few of them got together one day and returned some color to my mane.

The result was a brunette that was lovely, but, as you can tell by my face, I just didn't feel it was "me". 

I spent the next year experimenting with different shades of brunette. 

Slowly, I slipped more red in, going for an auburn look. I was yet to concede that I  did not have curly hair.

Finally, I decided that God is a better artist than I am. He gave me this specific color for a reason. It really does work the best with my skin tone and eye color. So, I dyed it as close to my natural color as I could, and spent the next year growing the colored part out of it. This picture was taken after I made the last major cut to rid myself of the unnatural part of my hair. I then focused on growing it out and keeping it healthy.

My hair is now healthy, long and free of dye. I have really enjoyed playing with it lately and trying out new ways of styling my strawberry blonde locks. Sometimes they turn out the way I plan, like this.

Occasionally it, well, yeah. Really, just look at it.
Occasionally I am reminded that I still have got a whole lot to learn before I go pro.

So, dear Anny, that is the history of my hair. I hope that now you can more fully appreciate how come this picture right here makes me happy.

Any more requests?