Hair Woes

Lately I’ve noticed that I have many more short hairs than normal along my hairline. I’m not sure what’s happening, but it appears that my hair is breaking off. I haven’t done anything differently and I haven’t been wearing my hair in a ponytail lately, so I have no idea what could be going on. It’s nothing major…but it’s annoying that I have hairs sticking straight up, as they grow back. As I was examining my hair, I had to giggle when I remembered a hair story from when I was younger.

Being a seventh grader makes you feel like you are smarter than you really are. One night, I was chewing some bubblegum and thought it’d be a good idea to go to sleep with my gum in my mouth. I honestly thought I could chew it all night if I was determined enough. Spoiler alert: I was not able to do it.

When I woke up, I was genuinely surprised that my head was stuck to my pillow. After failing to separate my pillow from my head, I sheepishly walked to the bathroom, holding the pillow against my temple. My worst fears were confirmed when I looked in the mirror. The pink glob of Bubblelicious was firmly planted in a patch of my hair near my left ear. Once I determined that I wasn’t going to untangle this mess, I chopped off my hair near the gum.

Uh oh! Now I have 3 inches of hair sticking straight out from my head. That’s definitely noticeable, given that my hair falls well below my shoulders. I should cut it close to my head so that no one will notice. Nope, that was a poor choice. A missing patch of hair is much more noticeable. What am I going to do? My mom’s gonna kill me when she sees this! I’ll just wear my hair down from now on and cover it up. Yes, that’ll work.

And it did work, for a while, although I had to dodge lots of questions from my mom and friends. “Why are you wearing your hair down? You always wear it in a ponytail.” “I wanted a change, that’s all.” As a tomboy (I’m sure there’s a more PC term for this now, but I’m not sure what it is), I always had my hair up, never wore makeup, and generally didn’t care what I looked like, so any departure from this definitely aroused suspicion.

A few months later, we were getting ready to go to my uncle’s wedding, and my mom insisted on doing my hair so it would look nice. When she was brushing my hair, she noticed. “What happened to your hair, Jennifer?”

“What do you mean? It’s the same as it always is.”

Running her fingers over my short pieces of hair, she said, “It’s just…breaking off,” a hint of confusion and sadness in her voice.

“Is it? I hadn’t noticed.”