Day Seventeen: Braid

I have really awesome hair.

I have recently come to love my hair. It is soft, thick, and doesn’t seem to be able to hold color no matter what I do to it, so it always ends up with a red tint that probably comes from my natural Irish tendencies. I don’t think I’ve had un-dyed hair since before I was in high school. I like it that way.

 I know a lot of girls who obsess over their hair, which is fine. I’ve just never really seen the point. As far as I’m concerned, if it grows back, I can pretty much do whatever I want to it. I’ve read enough issues of Cosmo to know I should start taking better care of it, so lately I’ve actually been trying. And I must say it looks fabulous.

Sure, it doesn’t listen to a damn thing I say. I put it in a high pony and it instantly curls into a bun regardless of how much I try not to let it. I put it in braids and it jumps out, curly and fun, which I kind of love. I like to think of my hair as its own sentient being; it knows more about what it wants than I do, so I leave it alone and it usually looks fine.

But my favorite part about my hair is my braid.

For those of you who don’t know, I have on long braid that is significantly longer than the rest of my hair. I’ve had it since just before freshman year of high school. I put it in my hair under the notion that it looked cool like that. And when I cut all my hair off right after Christmas break freshman year, I instructed the hairdresser to leave the braid. Ever since I’ve had this one long braid on the left side of my head.

It’s been called everything from my rattail to my Padawan braid (Star Wars reference, if you don’t get it, you aren’t cool.) Madison says it deflects lasers, my students think it’s awesome and I can spin it around my head like a helicopter. What’s not to love?

I think hair has an interesting status in our country. Girls kind of obsess over it, guys kind of ignore it. (Except for Charles, who apparently tries to beat it into submission.) But we don’t really care about it, it doesn’t define us. But I saw a video of two NFL cheerleaders shaving their heads for St. Baldrics in honor of a coach who had just beaten cancer. And in that moment, their hair (or lack thereof) was one of the most awesome things about them.

 So yeah, I love my hair. That’s pretty much it.

Challenge to my Readers:

Take a moment to admire your hair today. Style is differently than you normally would, or don’t style it at all and see how it feels.