2023-05-12: haircut

in the meantime i dropped out of grad school. moved to a new city, started a career, started the rest of my life. kept my hair short. easier for interviews, right? look presentable. don't give anyone a reason to say no.

somewhere around 2019 i decided i wanted it long again. i had just gone for a haircut, so starting short, it took me a good two years to grow it out again. not the thick, brush-catching stuff i remember. thinner. oh, middle age.

yesterday i went in for my biannual cut. the girl told me it had been eight months. that feels about right. and she was very striking: still masked (good for her), enormous eyes, high cheekbones, very pale. twenty one, she told me. did all her training during the pandemic. also, did a great job with my cut. everything holding up today, no next-day blues.

i don't know how long the length of this is going to last. i'm at that age where things start to change. greying and more. play it by ear. one year to the next. i suppose this is something of a mid-life crisis, and if it is, at least it's a sensible one. no sports car (i can't drive standard). no heartbreal and upheaval. no divorce, no decades-younger lover.

just a last grasp at what i should've had my entire adult life. i should've never cut my hair. but given that i did, here i am. it's still long and pretty. a reminder of what's passed, but also what's to come. how some parts of me are latent. waiting. how with tending, those flames can burn again.

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