Trapped between two lungs

Once again, I am asking myself if I want to grow out my hair. This is an endless squabble. Should I cut my short hair shorter? Should I grow it out? If I grow it out, will I actually do anything with it (like braid it or curl it or straighten it or whatever)? Should I just let my hair exist forever as a mullet and be content with that?

(thesartorialist)

(via fashiongonerogue)

The allure of short hair is that I never need to worry about looking "edgy." Short hair alone is unconventional. I'm not sure how, because there are many girls with short hair. Short hair is also very, very easy to take care of. Shower, dry it (don't even have to comb it), and put wax in it. Done, done, and done. Long hair, however, takes longer to dry, I figure you have to brush it — as it will tangle otherwise — and then you have to do something with it. When I had long(er) hair, I always put it up in a clip, setting it on the back of my head. It was very boring. No wonder I got comments about looking like a librarian.

But, then, when I see long hair like the picture above, I want that. Granted, she might have extensions, and I've no doubt she's had hair people working on her. Liz, from Late Afternoon, has long hair, and I like it. I doubt she has extensions, and I doubt she has hair people fixing her up.

 

(here)

I generally wish I had long hair, but getting it to the length of "long" takes a LOOOONG time. It takes patience, and you have to go through the awful in-between stage where your hair looks like a five year old decided to cut your hair like she would on a Barbie doll. (I assure you, five year olds cutting Barbie's hair always turns out disastrously.)

Besides the continuous argument over long vs. short hair, I always want to dye my hair. There are a few problems with this: 1) Dying your hair often is really unhealthy (for your hair); 2) I always want the colors I can't have, like white-blond, bright red (which I did have, but it faded quickly and seriously stained my scalp. I looked like I had a bullet wound for a week), and pink; and 3) Box dye is cheap and fairly easy to do on your own, but it fades relatively quickly. Furthermore, ANY HAIRSTYLIST ANYWHERE can tell that it's box dyed. 

For example:

"Hey, Joni, how are you?"

"Erin, hey." She glares at my hair. "You dyed your hair again. With a box." (And "with a box" is always said with a sneer.)

"Yes. It's cheap. Five dollars versus $50 can be quite tempting."

"Well, it's not as good as ____ (i.e. whatever-dye-I-use)."

At this point, I know it's good to start talking about her kids or unicorns or anything clearly unrelated to dying my hair. 

The pro of doing something different with my hair always outweigh the cons. There is only one pro (I always feel like a new woman. I wonder if it's similar to the feeling of going nude to a nude beach. Basically, it's liberating). There are many cons (is this hairstyle going to look like a dog pooped on my head? is this color going to make my hair look green? do I have to buy more product to put in my hair?)

The pro always wins.