My hair and challenging beliefs

Please excuse the grainy-taken-on-my-phone-in-the-bathroom photo. One day I'll get around to taking good Nikon shots and playing around with them on some kind of photo editor!

I am growing my hair. I've been doing so for a few years now. This is the longest it's been in....forever. My daughter, Chloe says to me whenever I get her to brush it for me, "Mum! Your hair hasn't been this long since the 90's!"

She's right. I think it was this long back in 1996 when I had my youngest. After I had her I left it a couple of weeks and then I lopped off my hair. I think lopping it off meant that I had one less thing to take care of! Caring for a newborn and three other children was enough!

My hair has been a kind of mental battle ground for me. Most of the time when I was growing up I had short hair. It wasn't something I wanted. I loved long hair and wanted it so much, but prior to becoming a teenager I didn't really care about taking care of my hair so the person who had to decided that short hair was best.

When I was old enough to take care of my hair and cared about how I looked I was often told that, "Long hair is too much on a Little Person. You need to keep it short." I was a people pleaser, so I did what made others happy.

In the 80's I had my fair share of TRAGIC tight perms! We had a mobile hair dresser who had cheap rates and would come to our house and take care of all our hair-care needs. Trouble is she only knew how to do ONE kind of perm - cut it in short layers and curl it within an inch of it's life!

Ok....ok....ok....because I love you all so much I'll show you......

Photo of a photo of me at 18 in September 1985. I'm being silly and pretending I'm pregnant. A year later.....I was!

Like I said......tragic!

But it was still short, because that's what I was led to believe looked best on me.....because I was short. Short statured people like me weren't supposed to have long hair, regardless of the fact that my best friend at the time (who was also short like me) had the most gorgeous, long, wavy hair and I thought it looked absolutely beautiful. Others agreed that she had beautiful hair, but she should've kept it short....because, in their opinion, it would look better.

Over the years I have challenged those voices and the belief in my own head of what fashion or look I am limited to.

There are no rules, there are no limits.

I don't have to stick to a particular style just because someone else said it looks better.

I have learned the difference between fact and opinion.

For far too long I have been led by the opinion of a minority of voices. I am free to wear my hair in whatever style I want - even if I want to go back and do another one of those horrendous 1980's perms! (not on your sweet Nelly!!!)

I've stopped thinking that I shouldn't wear this because of my size or I'm too old for that.

I like what I like, and that's ok. I love exploring what I like. I like discovering what I don't like. I'm led by my own eyes and my own thoughts and feelings. I'm learning to trust myself. I'm learning to be ok when others have a different opinion. I consider them and then decide if it's right for me rather than just automatically give in to the need to people please. What's the line in that old song?

"But it's alright now. I learned my lesson well. 
You see, you can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself."

Garden Party by John Fogerty

I'm growing my hair because I love the feel of it. I feel feminine and sexy with long hair. I may keep growing it and then dreadlock it.

There are days I want to shave it all off to a #3 all over. I will do this one day. Not right now though, but when I do it'll be because I want to, not because someone thinks I should.