My hair hurts

I have a talent for growing hair. This is not a skill, mind you; no amount of practice at growing hair makes me get any better at it. If I neglect my hair growing exercises, my hair will not grow more slowly. It grows. I wash and brush it. Times goes by. It gets longer.

When I was a small child, I wasn't allowed to indulge this talent, because I was the middlest of five children. Long hair on a small child isn't something the child takes care of; it's something a parent takes care of, usually the mom, and our mom was way too busy to let us grow our hair long. I thought this was a great injustice, especially when I looked at Susan Miller, whose hair was waist-length and who was rumored never to have had a haircur when we started first grade (in retrospect, this was obviously untrue, because she had bangs, and bangs don't form themselves without assistance from some cutting instrument, but it was close enough to true for six-year-olds).

By the time I was a medium-sized kid, I was inured to the perpetual pixie cuts and the appalling Toni perms that came around just before school pictures. My beautiful older sister grew her hair long once she became a teenager and was free from parental hair care; I kept mine short for a few more years just because I didn't want to be like her, or because it was less trouble, or something. Whatever my reason was, by my senior year in high school it was clearly no longer because it was less trouble, because that year, I set my hair with pincurls every single night to give myself tight little curls, to the point that when I stopped, one of my friends with naturally curly hair asked me enviously how I'd managed to straighten my hair. What a loon I was in those days.

I went to college and grew my hair long, because I could, because my mother wasn't telling me not to, because no one was comparing me to my sister any more. It looked pretty good.

Three times so far, I've cut it all off and donated it. I have really enjoyed the period immediately after cutting it really short, when I went from about two feet of hair to three-quarters of an inch of hair. The difference in weight, heat, and upkeep was substantial. Each of those times, I had been having some back problems, and getting rid of the hair alleviated a bit of the pressure. Long hair gets caught between the back of a chair and my back, and that sudden tug when it's caught can be very unpleasant if my back already hurts.

Every time I grow it really long, I think, this time, I'm going to keep going. This time, my back won't hurt because I'm doing lots of yoga and taking walks and lifting weights. This time, I'm going to grow my hair into Crystal Gayle territory.

And this time, in fact, my back doesn't hurt.

My rotator cuffs do.

Jesus, does it ever hurt to brush that damn hair for half an hour. I shouldn't have to brush it for such a long time, since it's straight, but now that I'm post-menopausal, it tangles more than it used to. I've been late for yoga a few times because it took so long to braid my hair. Doing yoga with the hair down is not an option; it covers my face in triangle pose, it gets caught under my back in bridge pose, it flops around and generally acts like a limp nuisance with bad manners. Sometimes I put it into just one braid, which doesn't take as long as the whole Pippi Longstocking thing, but that's less convenient for yoga than two braids, because then there's the lump right at the back of the neck.

Okay, Kate, if you're so all-fired whiny about your hair, why not just cut it off? What a great suggestion, Ms. or Mr. Interlocutor. Yes, that's just what I'll do. I made an appointment to cut about half the hair off and donate that chunk while still having longish hair left on my head. I counted the hours till the appointment. It was scheduled for 3:30 today. By 4:30 this afternoon, I'd have shoulder-length hair and a tidy hank of hair to send to Cleveland.

Instead, I've had a weekend of cancelled engagements, gallons of hot tea, and languid naps in the middle of the day. I blame society; if I didn't socialize, I wouldn't have encountered this energy-sapping virus.

And I still have over two feet of hair.