stardust☾

Today is a special day, its my one year buzzcut anniversary. I even wrote it down on my calendar as a reminder. The event was named “buzzed hair the first time”. With the naivety of my 12-month younger self, I had envisioned a scenario in which I’d shave my head, let it grow out a bit, probably bleach it, and then do it all over again.

The reality was pretty different. There were bleach moments, of course, but it took me only two weeks to realize that I was not going to buzz my hair again any time soon and most likely never again.

Let me say right upfront: I don’t regret getting my buzzcut at all. In fact, I still would recommend it to anyone. 

I was a little worried before I did it that I wouldn’t feel feminine anymore, that people would mistake me for a boy on the street. What I actually experienced was the exact opposite. 

My freshly shaved head made me feel so empowered, badass, and sexy. I felt like it made my bone structure more prominent. It had this weird psychological effect where I was more assertive and felt more confident because I no longer had my hair to hide behind like a security blanket.

I quickly discovered, however, that the sexy buzzcut length has a lifespan of about two weeks, and after that you’re stuck with the dreaded awkward phases, like my vaguely 1950s boys haircut here:

At first, I took these in stride. It was pretty nice to not have to worry about styling my hair because, well, it could only do one thing and looked pretty much exactly the same no matter what was going on. My hair dried in 20 minutes which for someone who is used to 24-hour hair drying times, was a real miracle.

But now its been 12 whole months and I’ve gotta be honest with you, I’m so sick of my damn hair. 

It’s crazy how much easier it is to destroy something rather than create it. Here’s a timelapse I took the day we did the big chop:

It’s been A YEAR now and I can’t even put all of my hair in a ponytail yet. Before I did the buzz, we all calculated how long it was going to take for my hair to get to the length it was before I cut it. I’m gonna be 30, guys. 

Four years of hair, gone in 10 minutes.

I’ve looked into all sorts of ways to grow hair faster and they all seem dubious. Don’t even get me started on those Sugar Bear vitamins. I know I do social media stuff but you wont catch me hawking them anytime soon and if I do, you have an open invitation to cancel me.

In my research it seems like the only solution that actually WORKS is the most frustrating one of them all: waiting it out.

If only we could live in a world where you could get a buzzcut one month and then have all your hair grow back the next. But that’s not the world we’re in, is it? And the more I thought about it, maybe it’s a good thing it’s so much harder to create than destroy, at least in the physical world. 

I’m not saying that all worthwhile things need to take a long time to have merit, some of the best songs have been written in 20 minutes, but if it was always that easy we’d be so overloaded that it would be hard to truly experience what we’ve made. 

Here's where my hairs at now after not being trimmed since the summer:

So maybe it’s a good thing I’m gonna have to wait another year for my dumb hair to grow. Maybe this new hair is gonna be a damn masterpiece. The Beyonce of hair. A girl can dream.