To whack or not to whack? That is the question.

I read Kitt’s post on this Blogging 101 assignment and could immediately relate to the freshness that comes from the simple yet overlooked at action of taking a bath.

Okay.  So I am light-years off track & behind on the beloved Blogging 101 homework to-do but I’m still here albeit not having clue 1 which number I’m supposed to be on.

Now back to the post and it’s about feeling refreshed…

A bath. An act so many have at their disposal yet I notice not too many partake in.  Why?  Why is that?  I’d love to know what the ‘things’ are that make people ‘showerers’ verses ‘bathers’.

Actually I’m being serious so please feel free to share with me the ‘why’ that makes you lean towards one or the other.

There is something so comforting in soaking in a as hot as I can stand it tub filled with freshly untainted water.  A few drops of patchouli, lavender & eucalyptus oil take me to another place where it’s calm & quiet.  For once within any given day I don’t have to stand or move constantly as my mind tells me that to do anything other than that would make me lazy and unfruitful.

As I slide into her each evening, she soothes the savage beast that dwells within me.  The same beast that tortures me with its relentless mind chatter pushing me to do better than yesterday.  Every single day.  Yet it is the same secret garden where my spirited creations are born & the chatter catches up with me allowing me to absorb what it has been saying all day instead of dodging it by the ceaseless movement as my body drags me along with it as if a prisoner not a participant…

It’s at this time that I realized I’m a “bath girl” verses a “shower girl”…

Since I was a wee lil one I was raised in a family born of generation upon generation of daily bath takers. Showers weren’t even an option in our home even though the spicket hung way up high on the shower wall. It wasn’t until I reached my teenage years and began to have sleepovers at friends house that I really discovered what they were.

That and how many people preferred to take them. My entire family however took baths over showers: Mother, father, sisters, grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles; you name it.
Me? I still take baths daily & look forward to them at the end of each day as I am allowed to sit still and allow my thoughts to catch up to me. Some I let say and some I let leave me escaping into the water.

Bizarre no?

I agree. Suffice to say I loved how Kitt described the soulfully therapeutic action contained within the simple act of taking a bath and the priceless gift that it can give to a person.

However that beloved topic has been beautifully covered forcing me to find a new one for this post…

I settled on the next best thing that makes me feel refreshed, rejuvenated, alive and perky.

Getting a haircut.  It all began the day I chopped off all my long locks and traded them in for a super short svelte look and every day since after re-chopping it.

I’d been knocking the idea around for a few years but would learn that the #1 reason or as I would later identify “excuse” holding me back from cutting it was that I identified more than not, my own sexuality & essence as a woman with my hair.

Long hair to be exact. I agonized over cutting it.  Relating to cutting it off to the loss of a limb or even my head. I’ve realized how many of my fellow sisters’ do the same. Most of them completely unaware as to the ‘why’ they cling to their long locks despite the fact that they have grown frustrated with its upkeep and can be found wearing it up and away from their face more times than not.  I understand this.  I once thought & felt the same.

Now I wear my hair super short and feel the freshest & closest thing to reborn in the moments after I’ve just had it whacked.  Each time, over 2 years later.

I see through different eyes now.  Beauty.  It is a very unique thing.  I now find myself looking past the hair which sits on a woman’s head which previously defined her but instead see women more or less bald regardless of their current hair length, style or color.  In this new awakening I have been gifted the ability to see the beauty & essence of a woman simply by looking at her face.

I often wonder how I missed seeing this innate beauty all these years…

I encounter more women than not who would rock the living hell out of a much shorter hairstyle than they currently sport.  Their faces born not to be hidden but seen.

I’m always surprised at how often I’m stopped and complimented by women and men for my uber short style even when I’m sporting a beanie which ever so slightly reveals it’s lack of length from under it; showing a mere piece or two.  Some days I feel like a boy with it; but most days I don’t.  Most days I don’t even think about my hair it’s just ‘there’.  It was the same when my hair was long.  It’s something us gals just do…

It wouldn’t be until I met my now husband Miguel that I would finally dismount the fence I’d been riding for nearly a decade and take the plunge…

But not before I quickly corrected his “misunderstanding” by responding to his statement that he thought I would look amazing with a super short cut by informing him “I will NEVER EVER cut my hair off!”. I think I may even have spit on him a little by pure accident as I recall being rather frothed up at the audacity of the concept & even more at his rejection of my long hair.  How dare he! Does he have any idea how long I’ve spent worshiping this mass of tangled and ratted up mess especially first thing in the morning God forbid I run out of conditioner during a bath I’ll never get a pick or comb through it.  But he didn’t need to know that.

Yet another reason I’ve chosen over the years to remove the “never” word from my personally spoken dictionary…

See Miguel loves short hair on women.  He met me when mine was long. To the middle of my back long. He waited for a few months after we began seeing each other to “plant the seed”.  He’s actually quite sneaky like that.  He’s a Libra…

I realized that I’d been growing my hair for decades, pampering it and coveting it for so long that I’d grown sick and tired of it.  It was an anchor.   It now ruled me.

I wore it up and off my face most of the time and especially when I slept as I tend to move a lot when I sleep so much so that I’ve been known to fall off of the bed which makes for knots and a tangled mess come morning. Clubbing?  Oh yeah!  I love to dance and loved heading out with my long hair perfectly styled only to dance non-stop for hours on end catching glimpses of myself in the mirror during each bathroom break to see it flat, wet & stuck to my face & body as I fought it for the rest of the night.

I loved my hair.  It was looking back now, a love-hate relationship though…

So much so that I was allowing it to define me and all that “is” me so that if it ceased to exist then so would I.

So, after having said all of this, what’s so refreshing about having less hair on my head than many men do now a days?

The breeze.  I can now feel the breeze as it glides over my ears and scalp.

I never could before.  Feel it.

In the warm months of the year; my favorite time actually, I can feel the air pass through every inch of my scalp as it cools me & awakens sensation I’d nearly forgotten exist within my own body.

Now, sans my layers and layers of hair I can feel the air as it kisses and whispers in, on and around my ears… Caressing my scalp and neck reminding me I’m alive before it passes by.
Lighter. I’m so much lighter now…

This experience, I get to repeat each time I get it trimmed up. I have to watch myself as if I’m not careful I’m in that ‘chair’ every 4 weeks doing just that verses every 6 months or more when I was “growing it out”.

Having your neck smoothly shaved at will doesn’t make you masculine you know…

It stands to reveal your true beauty that’s been hiding behind the cover of it the entire time…

A layer we didn’t even know existed…

Despite it all I do miss it sometimes you know…  Contradictory.  But I’m a woman so I hear that’s par for the course.

For me I say whack it.

You may just find that for once in your life thus far you find yourself secretly wishing it didn’t grow back quite so fast…

And you know what?

It grows back unlike other areas of ourselves we may remove cutting off on any given day of the week…

2011… My hair was long but still growing…

Late 2012…
Whacked it all off

Getting even shorter.. Once you start it’s hard to stop 😉

April 13, 2014
My Birthday goofing off with my husband & one of my Favorite Styles!

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