When I was a kid I was Catholic. When I was a kid I was straight. When I was a kid I loved my parents without question. When I was a kid I stayed away from anything my dad didn’t like or anything my mother didn’t approve. My music taste belonged to my parents. My look belonged to my parents. I belonged to my parents. When I was a kid I didn’t know who I was, but only who my parents were. With parents like mine, it took a few tries for me to finally become my own person, with one moment in particular shining above the rest of my self-realizations.
I sit in the black cushy chair, my eyes closed. My dad had already said something along the lines of “hell no” and my mom had disapproved of the idea entirely. But here I was. The fear of my parents was only slightly over come by the desire to do something for myself, two feelings that would grow side by side for several more years of my life. The stylist ran her hand through all fourteen inches of my hair. “How short?” she asked me, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror. My heart was racing. I wasn’t nervous about cutting my hair, but my parents’ reactions to it. I had already made it this far though. It was my freshman year of high school and about damn time I did something simply because I wanted to, without my parents’ opinions weighing in heavier than my own. I grabbed some of my hair a couple inches from the root. “About this much,” I said as confidently as I could. My stomach was tying in tighter knots than I thought possible, and my heart was racing with fear and excitement. She nodded and tied my hair into a low ponytail. I held my breath as I heard the scissors clip across the top of the hair elastic. The hair once attached to my head felt a lot more like my own and a lot less like my parents’ once it fell completely from my head. Once the weight of the hair left my head so did the weight of the responsibility I felt to be who my parents wanted me to be. When I saw myself with about a foot less of hair I no longer felt obligated to uphold my parents belief systems. With hair much shorter than I was used to, I felt free. I felt unstoppable. I finally felt like myself- beautiful for who I was rather than who I had been pretending to …show more content…
Maybe I really could be an artist. Maybe I could write things that matter to me and not to other people. Perhaps I didn’t share my parents’ beliefs. Perhaps I was one of the queers my parents seemed to detest. Perhaps I didn’t believe in my parents’ God. Perhaps I didn’t believe in my parents.
As the hairdresser made the last few snips I felt the ole “me” fall away. I felt the girl who had cried because her seventh grade English teacher expressed that he didn’t see the importance behind her personal narrative essay in front of the rest of the class fall away. I felt the kid who accepted a faith because it belonged to her family fall away. I felt a teenager who pushed away art in favor of academics to meet unprecedented standards put in place by those who “only want the best” for her fall away. I felt my parents’ daughter fall far, far
I sit in the black cushy chair, my eyes closed. My dad had already said something along the lines of “hell no” and my mom had disapproved of the idea entirely. But here I was. The fear of my parents was only slightly over come by the desire to do something for myself, two feelings that would grow side by side for several more years of my life. The stylist ran her hand through all fourteen inches of my hair. “How short?” she asked me, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror. My heart was racing. I wasn’t nervous about cutting my hair, but my parents’ reactions to it. I had already made it this far though. It was my freshman year of high school and about damn time I did something simply because I wanted to, without my parents’ opinions weighing in heavier than my own. I grabbed some of my hair a couple inches from the root. “About this much,” I said as confidently as I could. My stomach was tying in tighter knots than I thought possible, and my heart was racing with fear and excitement. She nodded and tied my hair into a low ponytail. I held my breath as I heard the scissors clip across the top of the hair elastic. The hair once attached to my head felt a lot more like my own and a lot less like my parents’ once it fell completely from my head. Once the weight of the hair left my head so did the weight of the responsibility I felt to be who my parents wanted me to be. When I saw myself with about a foot less of hair I no longer felt obligated to uphold my parents belief systems. With hair much shorter than I was used to, I felt free. I felt unstoppable. I finally felt like myself- beautiful for who I was rather than who I had been pretending to …show more content…
Maybe I really could be an artist. Maybe I could write things that matter to me and not to other people. Perhaps I didn’t share my parents’ beliefs. Perhaps I was one of the queers my parents seemed to detest. Perhaps I didn’t believe in my parents’ God. Perhaps I didn’t believe in my parents.
As the hairdresser made the last few snips I felt the ole “me” fall away. I felt the girl who had cried because her seventh grade English teacher expressed that he didn’t see the importance behind her personal narrative essay in front of the rest of the class fall away. I felt the kid who accepted a faith because it belonged to her family fall away. I felt a teenager who pushed away art in favor of academics to meet unprecedented standards put in place by those who “only want the best” for her fall away. I felt my parents’ daughter fall far, far