Alina cut four inches off. I told her to, so it wasn’t a surprise when she turned me toward the mirror. Two years ago, there was a failed experiment with bangs and another hair dresser. Ever since I found Alina, we have been growing out the bangs and this weekend, they were finally long enough to make the big cut. All my hair is the same length again. It’s all really short.

When you look at the hair magazines, it’s classified as “medium.” I guess it’s not short according to society’s standards, but compared to what I’m used to, it’s really short. It reminds me of myself in the 80’s. My hair was this length and cut when I was obsessed with living Molly Ringwald’s life. Now, you couldn’t pay me enough to trade places with her.

I look at my picture, here on the weblog, and I realize that I look nothing like it anymore. That’s the difference a radical haircut can make. Instead of the relaxed and casual woman with the hippy hair, I look like Sigorney Weaver in Working Girl. I look like Elizabeth Perkins in Big. I look straight out of 1986. I’m a determined business woman on the way up the corporate ladder.

There is the alternative. I could straighten my hair. It takes about thirty minutes every day and it is incredibly damaging, but I could wake up a little early and actually work on my hair instead of just washing it and allowing it to air dry. I could blow it out with a round brush and work it over with the flat iron. It takes some doing, but it’s entirely possible.

Of course, then I’m yet another person. When it’s straight with this cut, I’m still not the relaxed and casual woman with the hippy hair. I am the frigid bitch. I am Selma Blair in Legally Blonde. I’m Sarah Michelle Gellar in Cruel Intentions. I have a stick up my butt and I’m a successful business woman at the top of the corporate ladder.

The only way out of this is through. My personal style is long and curly. I needed to go short to fix my previous indiscretion. This is the penance that I have to pay in order to get back to my true nature. I will live through this short hairstyle. Within the year, it will be longer and closer to my favorite length. Until then, it will look good, it just won’t look like me.

In the end, I don’t really care about my hair. I’m happy as a clam because my toilet flushes and my drains drain. It’s absolutely amazing what I take for granted and how grateful I feel when I realize it.