Bangs and Braces…Bangs and Boys…Bangs and Bad Choices ~ Reprise

Yesterday, my BFF posted in social media that she cut her own bangs. “Uh, oh,” I quipped in the comments. “How much wine was involved?” Then I remembered this post from back in 2016 and realized I was projecting my own deep, childhood based neurosis onto her well-adjusted, life-coachy self—and the only way I could think of to re-gain my self-respect was to finish half a pumpkin pie.

“Hi, my name is Janet, and I’m a serial bang cutter.”

Carry on,
xox

“It’s not a good idea to touch your hair when you are in transition. Or change your appearance at all for that matter.”
~ Me

I can offer this advice because I know it well—from personal experience.

The first time I used self mutilation, bang cutting as a soothing device was second or third grade, I can’t remember which, when I was unceremoniously transferred without any warning, from Miss Law’s classroom, which I adored because it was very progressive (she had us sit with our desks in a circle), to Sister Francis Ann’s dark and dreary classroom where the desks were aligned in eight, severe, ROWS.

That night I cut my own bangs. Badly. With plastic doll scissors. And although they were seven different levels of horrible I never admitted it. Until now.

I always seemed to get a bad haircut right about the time I was losing my front teeth or getting braces. Like I couldn’t just leave well enough alone.
What about you?

Was it bad timing?

One of the traumas of childhood?

Or a tragic coincidence?

I can’t be sure, but I have the pictures to prove it.

Due to the fact that pixie cuts were all the rage for little girls in the 1960’s, and that I wasn’t asked or consulted in any way because, well, because it was back in the days when kids didn’t get a vote and my mom chose my stylist and paid for my haircut, I decided to fly in the face of conventional thinking I followed the trend and wore my hair like a boy.

At first a toothless boy.

Then a little boy with teeth too large for his/her face to which the braces only added insult to injury.

Nothing says “Hey, I’m well-adjusted”,  like showing up to the first day of a new grade wearing braces, a uniform, and your dad’s haircut.

Damn…childhood. It’s no wonder we’re all so fucked up when it comes to transitions and change.

Make yourself look as bad as you possibly can—venture out into an awkward social situation—and then try to make new friends.

Which I’m pretty sure became a pattern for me.

I remember once, in the midst of a terribly painful break-up (not to be confused with all the other break-ups that were a laugh riot), drinking and dialing my hairdresser who was a friend. I needed to re-invent. Change my face, or my body, or my personality into something more desirable so that the next asshat would find me irresistible. So…we proceeded to spend the rest of the night smoking cigarettes, demolishing several bottles of two-buck-Chuck, cursing sexy bad boys and the women who f*ck them (us), and dying my blonde hair a hideous shade of blackish/purple. The color of an eggplant, maybe a plum, most definitely a gangrenous foot.

It was not pretty. As a matter of fact it was so far from pretty that to suggest that it was even in the vicinity is an affront to the word.

Then, without ever consulting a mirror, we both agreed (at least that has always been her side of the story), that the only thing that could make me look even cuter—were bangs.

The next day I wanted to die. No, seriously. I almost dropped dead at the sight of myself.
Not only did I have to venture out in public looking like Mo from the Three Stooges, I had an audition and I was sporting bangs. Bangs the color of a dead foot that sadly matched the rest of my hair—and as memories of the previous night came flooding back I remembered that that was the least of my problems.
I was single.
Again.
I was living a real catastrofuck.

This is my darling sister, with whom I lived at the time, and I’m sure we’re laughing at the eyebrows I had to draw on with a black pencil to match my hair. Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Even my mom, the one who had me pixie-cut, hated it. She actually cried and asked why I was deliberately defacing myself. Like I was cutting or something. She suggested that I “get some help” which is code for “Your life has seriously jumped the shark and by-the-way, if anyone asks, none of this is my fault.”

I didn’t need a shrink to tell me I sucked at transition. I had a bigger issue. Control. If something happened that I didn’t have any control over…watch out! Bangs were in my immediate future.

They still are.

If you know me, you know how many different colors and styles I’ve worn my hair over the years and if I trace it back, something emotional was always happening, some change or transition. Two parallel blenders into which I threw my life.

What could go wrong? I know what you’re thinking. You wish you had the phenomenal coping skills that I possess, good god woman, get a grip!

I just did it again recently. When I decided I was a writer, I also decided it was time to stop dying my hair and go gray!

So, that just goes to prove that although I’ve gotten a gazillion times better—old neurosis die hard .
I recognize what’s about to happen when I get wobbly and start fingering the scissors.

Bangs.

Then I go and hide them from myself.

I’ve also outgrown drinking and dialing my hairdresser and I try not to make huge changes in my appearance before an important event—although I have a big meeting at the end of the month and I’m not sure my hair is purple enough underneath…I’m serious.

The other day I tore a picture out of a magazine of a cute way to wear gray hair with…bangs.

I’m doomed.

What do you do under similar circumstances? Loose weight? Buy boobs? Grow a beard? (Yeah, me too)

Carry on,
xox