ARROW
My hair has become a big part of my gender expression a lot of the time; Sometimes my hair is all that I have in terms of my outward gender expression, but other times I can almost forget that it's there.
My mom taught me to shampoo my hair often and brush it every day. I didn't really know how to take care of curly or wavier hair at the time, I didn't even know it was supposed to be different. I don't have perfectly straight hair, so brushing it just turned it into an obnoxious static-y cloud. I was hyper aware of this; It was so irritating to me, especially as someone who has sensory sensitivities. And my parents would just refuse
to listen!
My dad, with curlier hair than me (Irish curls), would be telling me I needed to brush my hair! I would tell him, "it will literally look worse", but he just wouldn't understand. In college, with some guidance from a friend, I learned how to properly take care of hair that has wavy or curly texture. Now, since it's short, my hair isn't that curly so I'm not super religious with my routine or anything, but I do know how to take care of my hair now! So it's been a journey, but we're there, I think!
I had been growing my hair out from 2nd grade until 11th grade, when I first cut my hair short. Until then it was one of the characteristics that people could identify me by– that I had really, really long hair. And I was terrified of cutting it.
I had a good deal of anxiety about my hair. When I had long hair, I was very worried that someone might cut it all off for malicious reasons. My mother would constantly try to push me to cut it a little bit shorter to keep it healthier and get rid of more split ends, but I always hated the idea.
When I had a dream that I cut my hair short and loved it, it was very bizarre. Normally, the idea of cutting my hair, or even identifying with a fictional character who had short hair, was really uncomfortable to me. It felt a little like a premonition, almost. I woke up feeling kinda wigged out, but not necessarily in a bad way– more In an 'oh, maybe I kinda need to reconsider how I feel about this' kinda way.