The Hair Monster

That's what my roommate calls me. It takes 72 minutes to actually wash, condition, and rinse my hair (I've timed it), as it is over 28" long now. It actually grows about an inch a month. For years and years I had much shorter hair, and every day now in the Texas heat I think of cutting it. It is my "passive-aggressive" hair statement, and I probably deserve to be miserable with it. Bad Hair growing Karma catching up with me.
Until I was about 12, I had very thick blond hair, and it turned brown almost overnight. It was wavy and I remember ironing it straighter in my pre-teens, then braiding it in High School. I didn't actually cut it short until I was in college. About three years ago I decided to try and grow it long, and not for the nicest of reasons. As I was growing up I had three sisters, all with beautiful long, straight, white blond hair. Mine was brown and wavy, and too thick for the 70's. I hated my hair for years, but a very smart hairdresser told me some day I would love it. I remember laughing out loud for a full five minutes when he said it.
Flash forward to the future. My beautiful blond sisters all have thinning, wispy hair, and spend hours with blow dryers and hair spray puffing it up to actually look like hair. And here I am at 49 with long thick hair. Gobs and gobs of it. I probably loose more brushing it than they have on their heads. I'm generally not very vain. But I do realize I've grown this hair for the teenager that felt not so beautiful in comparison to her sisters. Just because I could. Sometimes the things you dislike the most about yourself come to be what you cherish later. The lesson my hair taught me.