I was talking to a friend last month about hair, about how I don’t dye my grays and how I cut it myself. She was telling me about her hair and why she dyes it regularly and the cut she chose. While we talked, I realized something. Both of us were talking about the same thing. We were both sharing our personal methods for the hair of least resistance. Both my friend and I were telling each other about the easiest way to make our own hair look good.

I didn’t always search for the hair of least resistance, in fact, most of my teens and twenties was spent trying to make my hair something it wasn’t. I spent so much time in salons, changing the nature of my hair with color, perms and straighteners during those two decades that I really feel like I’ve done my time. I never again have to sit in a chair for five hours, hoping they don’t accidentally burn it all off my head.

I talked about The Tragic Black Hair Incident on this blog before. It was the event that convinced me to never again play with color in my hair, but even after that, I spent so much time trying to make my hair straighter or curlier than it was.

Until I found The Hair of Least Resistance.

It took me 45 years to find it, but here it is. All I have to do is wash and condition it and let it air dry. No styling. No curling irons. No straighteners. No blow dryers. I can throw it into a bun or ponytail to get it out of the way. I can pin it up with barrettes to vary the appearance. It is easy to do every day and easy to maintain.

I have a special gratitude for the woman who made this video because it’s the way I cut my hair.

I first tried this haircut about a year ago and I have been so grateful for learning this ability. Going to get a haircut was such a stressful activity for me because I could never find a hairdresser who could just easily cut my hair. I wish there were hairdressers who are like barbers, who just bring you in, cut your hair in five minutes and send you out the door. I don’t want to be pampered when it comes to my hair. I just need the split ends cut off. Learning to cut my own hair is such a blessing and has given me a HUGE peace of mind.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t get tempted. I see pictures like this and the inner New Waver in me WANTS it. She wants single clumps of blue hair nestled in with the brown. She wants to dye it all white so she can then choose a different color of hair every week or two. She wants to cut it a strange and unique style that is striking and difficult to maintain.

And then The Hair of Least Resistance wins out.

Because after forty-six years, I have learned one important thing:

I AM NOT MY HAIR.

So much of my identity was tied up in my hair in my teens and twenties that it literally took fifteen years to learn that simple fact. I am not my hair. I am not my clothes. I am not my job. I am not my group of friends. I am not my family. Standing alone, homeless and jobless on this world, stripped naked and shaved bald, I would still be me.

If I am not my hair, then The Hair of Least Resistance is the only logical choice. My only shame is that it took me so long to learn it.

Mike and I have moved many times in our lives. We’ve lived in a total of six places in the Salt Lake Valley in our twenty-five years of marriage. Every once and a while, I get the urge to drive past those old homes where we used to live. Sometimes I look at old pictures I’ve taken when we lived there. We sit in the car and notice the differences in the exterior or yard and I think,

I used to live here.

The same is true for the Internet. I have lived in many places on the Internet, even as far back as the old BBSs. But unlike the old houses, so many of those places I can’t visit anymore. My favorite BBS was the one Mike and I ran back in the early 90s and I can’t go there to talk anymore. Sure, we have all the old data from the BBS on a floppy disk, rotting in the garage. Even if we could fire up that old Atari ST, I doubt we could bring that beast of a BBS back to life. And that makes me sad because I can’t go back there and say,

I used to live here.

There was a DDR forum that I used to visit every single day. When I was at work, wishing I could play DDR, I would log on and talk about the game there. It was called DDR Freak and it’s still there, just like my old apartment on 600 East, it sits there, alone. The last post I’ve seen logged was in 2011. It has been almost four years since anyone said a word there, but

I used to live here.

Even this blog has been slowly abandoned. I’m spending more time on Facebook than I do writing here. It’s not that I really write on Facebook. I just scan the feed, liking things and commenting here and there. It was kind of like what I did on the DDR forum, except about a wide variety of subjects instead of just one video game. But this blog is like a home I own, but don’t live in anymore. A summer vacation spot with no vacations taken. A rental home that no one rents. Sometimes I show up, clean the comment spam out of the corners and shine the entries where old formatting no longer works. But, mostly I go there to say,

I used to live here.

Atari Telenet image via: ATARI BBS GATEWAY

I moved to St. George a little over a year ago. I didn’t tell a ton of people about it and I didn’t announce it here. Mostly, we wanted to be closer to Mike’s parents, who moved down here. My mom and Reed also spend a lot of time down here, so we get to see them often.

St. George is to Salt Lake City as Florida is to New York. All true Utahns end up retiring and moving down here to warmer climates, no snow shoveling and we still get to be Utahns. We just came down here twenty years too early.

After a year here, it’s not that different than living Up North. We don’t have a Noodles and Company or a Forever 21, but then again, it only takes five minutes to drive anywhere. I used to plan 30-45 minutes to drive anywhere in the Salt Lake Valley. Now, I only plan for trips to take 15 minutes. It used to take me that long to drive from Daybreak to the freeway (on a good day).

The primary difference between St. George and Salt Lake City is this: In St. George, every day’s a car show. Not a day goes by when I don’t see some gorgeous and rare old car. LITERALLY. The only way I can avoid seeing cool old cars is by staying in my house. Even if I walk around my neighborhood, I will see a cool old car because we have SEVERAL enthusiasts right near our home.

This is what we saw casually parked at the sports bar last week.

For over a year, Mike and I have been pondering the phenomenon for a year now and the best we can come up with is water. Because we have little snow on the roads and water in the air, the cars don’t rust out as quickly here. Plus, when it only takes five minutes to drive all the way across town, you don’t rack up a lot of miles on your baby.

In the end, I really miss my friends and family who stayed Up North, but I’m staying down here. 110 degree heat is nothing compared to six inches of snow overnight. Lack of noodles and fashionable clothes is nothing compared to crowded roads and the crush of too many people. We love it down here and we are staying. Plus, who can say no to a daily car show?