Trust the Process, She Said

I’ve had a complicated relationship with my hair my entire life.

It has always been thick and wavy. That sounds like a compliment until you are a child who cannot manage it, and your mother solves the problem by keeping it short. For years, I wore a pixie or a “Dorothy Hamill” style. In high school I finally developed enough coordination and patience to handle it myself, and I started growing it out. I couldn’t wait for it to get well past my shoulders. I had never had it that long before, and thanks to my deep and abiding obsession with Little House on the Prairie, I had decided Laura Ingalls hair was the dream.

For most of my life, my mother cut my hair. Later, when it did get longer, I trimmed it myself. Somewhere in my thirties, I decided to let a professional step in before things got too prairie-adjacent.

I didn't know any hairdressers, and I was nervous about putting my hair in a stranger's hands. My parents had a stylist they trusted, a woman named Suzie who did hair, nails, pedicures, the full range. They suggested I give her a try. Mom and Kami offered to come along.

By then, I had been growing my hair out for 4 or 5 years. It reached the middle of my back, all one length, still thick. I loved it, but I was ready for a real style. I sat in Suzie’s chair and told her exactly what I wanted: long layers and face-framing layers. I was also very clear about what I did not want. I was not there for short hair. I wanted shape. I wanted style. I wanted to leave with essentially the same amount of hair I came in with, just arranged better.

Suzie’s shop was small, and we were the only ones there. Mom and Kami sat nearby, visiting while I settled into the chair. At first, everything felt normal. Snip, snip. She worked around the bottom, then moved into the layers. I relaxed a little.

Then I started to feel her spending a lot of time at the back of my neck. That did not feel like long layers. I stayed quiet because I wanted to believe she knew what she was doing. Mom and Kami went quiet too, and that told me everything I was trying not to know.

Snip snip snip.

"Should it look like that?" I heard Kami ask, a little apprehensive. Suzie mentioned something about trusting the process. I said nothing. There was nothing useful to say at that point. The only reasonable option was to let her finish and assess the damage at the end.

When she was done, Suzie showed me the back with the confidence of a woman who believed she had done excellent work. She was completely proud of it.

What I saw in the mirror was far from long layers. She had cut through the top layer almost completely and left the underneath hanging there, barely touched. It was 6 or 8 inches of long hair below the rest, like a bed skirt attached to the back of my head. The thick hair I had spent years growing was gone. What remained looked less styled than interrupted.

I stayed quiet, paid her, and walked out of the salon as fast as I could without making it obvious I was fleeing. I made it to the car before I burst into tears.

Mom and Kami tried everything to make me feel better. They also pointed out that my finished haircut looked remarkably similar to Suzie’s own hair: short, layered, and very much her signature style. It had a little Joan Jett in the 80s energy, except Joan Jett had chosen hers on purpose. Whether Suzie had done it intentionally or simply defaulted to the only haircut she knew, we could not say.

I did not want to part with my long hair. A couple of days later, I relented and had Mom cut off the “bed skirt” layer. That left my hair much shorter, but at least it looked intentional again. I hated losing the length, mostly because I knew how long it would take to get it back. Years, as it turned out... many of them.

I have since found a stylist who understands long hair and does a beautiful job maintaining it. With her help, I grew it all the way to my waist and kept it there for years. Recently, I cut about a foot off, bringing it back to the middle of my back with proper layers and a little more movement. The waist-length hair was beautiful, but it had started to feel like a bit much. At some point, long hair crosses from “pretty” into “this needs its own zip code.”

The bed skirt haircut has never been forgotten. Some mistakes you grow out; hers took years, and I have never fully forgiven her for it.