Hair Length
I've recently reached the hair milestone of being able to wear it in braids, so I have hair length on the mind, and having had almost every conceivable hair length, I feel I am more than qualified to give my opinions on the subject.
Let me familiarize you with my hair timeline, beginning with the Great Reset of 2014.
In June of 2014, I was graduating from middle school, and I wanted to look good. Naturally, this meant curling my hair. I had seen on YouTube somewhere that a good way to ensure that your pin-straight, flat, textureless hair held curls was to put hairspray onto your hair before you curled it. Now, hearing this, I'm sure you can instantly recognize it as a spectacularly bad and even dangerous idea, but in all my 13-year-old naïveté, I didn't question it one bit. As you can imagine, taking a curling iron to strips of hair coated in whatever the hell they use to make hairspray was deeply damaging to my hair; in fact, it immediately fused the ends of my hair together. So, at the very end of eighth grade, I had four inches of my hair cut off, leading me to begin high school with hair only an inch or two past my shoulders.
I'd always wanted really long hair, and apart from fifth grade and the last bit of eighth grade before cutting all that hair off, I'd never really had my hair long at all. My goal length became my waist (I would later change it to my hips), and I was determined to grow my hair down to there, keep it like that for about three months, and then cut it short and donate it.
Growing your hair out can take a while, especially when you set such a lofty goal for it. Even when you're trying to grow your hair as long as possible, it's still important to get it cut every once in a while to keep it healthy. For most of high school, I only got my hair cut about twice a year, which, as is evidenced by the hours and hours of class time I spent picking at my hundreds of split ends, was not nearly frequent enough. But my hair did grow, and by the summer of 2016, it was getting into waist territory.
I think the clearest indicator that your hair is truly long (potentially dangerously so) is when you feel it brushing the backs of your elbows. When you can wear your hair as a cardigan and it effectively keeps your shoulders warm, you have a lot of hair. But I didn't stop there. I think of my mindset back then as similar to that of Gertrude McFuzz - I wouldn't just settle for long hair, I wanted my hair to be the longest.
During the second semester of my senior year of high school (early 2018), someone stepped on my hair. I had been flirting with the idea of finally doing the big chop for some time then, but this might have been the last straw. I was sitting in the Little Flower Theater at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, which, in case you've never been, has very vertical seating, meaning that it wouldn't be very difficult for someone sitting in the row behind you to kick your head (though it's not an immediate hazard), and my long and shiny locks had spilled over onto the floor behind me; soon enough I felt a yank and looked behind me to find that the person behind me was, on the way to their seat, walking over my hair. It was both gross and painful. Also during my senior year of high school, I began wearing a fanny pack daily (which I still do to this day) to carry essential items, and every time I clipped it on some hair would get stuck either under the strap or inside the buckle.
I'll let you in on a little secret: hair down to your hips is too long. Once someone's hair gets down below the breast or to the bottom of the ribcage, it's going to look long. Whether it's an inch below your breast or six inches below, no one will mistake your hair as short. Any excess hair beyond that just becomes ridiculous.
In April of 2018, I had eighteen inches of hair chopped off. Eighteen inches is a lot; it's the height of an American Girl doll. I was so thrilled. Having short hair after all those years really made something click. I felt more like myself than ever before. Later I would realize that even after that big chop, my hair was still too long for my liking.
Short hair grows so much more quickly than long hair does (again, because long hair all looks the same), so I began getting haircuts about twice as frequently once I had my short hair. Each time I got a trim, my bob got shorter and shorter. I realized that my optimal hair length is a very short bob, right at my jaw.
In December of 2019, I suddenly needed to shave my head. It seemed to come out of nowhere, but a powerful force drew me to the clippers. January 20th, 2020, I buzzed all my hair off. It looked great (and I honestly think about doing it again sometimes), but soon after, things got tragic.
The important thing to keep in mind about my hair personally is that it is pin-straight. There is not a curl, a wave, or a bend to be seen. So for the first three months of growing out my buzz cut, my hair just stood straight up like a troll's.
When my hair finally sat down, it actually looked pretty good. During the time when I felt like I had a proper men's haircut, I always felt really great about myself and my hair. After that, it was a fairly smooth transition back into a very short bob. Nowadays, I still feel like my short bob is still my optimal hair length, but I'm thinking about growing it out in favor of the braid/ponytail lifestyle and potentially a cool undercut. I'm definitely open to going super short again, too. We'll see what's in store for my hair.
I think the most important takeaway from this for non-Conway persons should be that long hair is just long. You don't need the excess to prove the length of your hair. Do what makes you happy, but don't be ridiculous.
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