The only people who love curly hair are the people who don't have it

A haircut is probably not a big deal to lots of people. But for me, as my boyfriend Brian put it, getting my hair cut was an "event." I've had pretty long hair for most of my life, but every now and then I get sick of dealing with all that hair. Because I have an crazy amount of curly, thick hair. So much that I will never have to worry about going bald. My hair can be an unmanageable, frizzy monstrosity, but it can also be gorgeous when I take the time to deal with it. My hair has been my security blanket because even when I felt my most fat and ugly, I knew that I had great hair. It felt like could cover up all the ugliness with that one thing.

The last time I cut my hair was when I was right in the middle of dealing with hard times in my life primarily by devouring every pizza in America and gaining 80 lbs in a year. I cut it kind of as an act of desperation. I hated how I looked in the mirror more and more every day. Losing weight didn't seem possible because I couldn't give up the comfort food, but I could change my hair. So I dyed it dark and cut it pretty short. It wasn't flattering, but at least it was different. And I badly needed different. Here is that haircut:

This time when I decided I wanted to get my hair cut, it wasn't because I didn't like what I saw in the mirror. It was because I decided I didn't need my hair as a security blanket anymore. Well, also because it is approximately 10 million degrees outside and I was sick of dealing with that sweaty, frizzy mess. And also because my hair is so thick that it literally took 7 hours to air dry. And maybe also because while my hair does look great when I take the time to style it and wear it down, during April-October it is also so humid that it only looks good for about 15 minutes before it morphs into a gigantic afro, and I resort back to my ever-present side braid or ponytail. Okay, so I guess there's a lot of reasons I wanted my hair cut. I wish I could show you the horror that my hair can be after air drying in all that humidity, but I have wisely never allowed myself to photographed in that state (that I know of). So here is a different before/after shot than the ones I usually post here:

My hair looked this good for maybe 10 minutes after this shot was taken.

New do

My hair feels awesome and light now, and most importantly, I can still put it back in a ponytail for the gym (seriously, the woman at the salon probably thought I was a gym obsessed freak because I emphasized this point like a thousand times). I can wear it curly or straight or somewhere in between. I've got a lot of changes in my life coming up in the next few months, and even though it may seem silly, a new haircut helps me feel like a new person and like I can handle everything coming up (without shoving pizza in my mouth at an alarming rate).