sure. wait. what?

1. 

I have a haircut appointment in a few hours. 

Typically I don’t get a haircut until the layered ends of my hair have dipped below my waist. Now that I’m older, I am no longer as patient. As soon as blow-drying takes more than 5 minutes, it’s time to snip-snip.

2. 

As a child, I used to wonder why many older women I knew — like my mother and my classmates’ mothers — all had short hair. Meanwhile, the high school students in our town wore their hair long and lush and sometimes braided into two pigtails a la Shan Cai of Meteor Garden. 

When I asked my mom if I could also grow out my hair like them, she said no. You’re prone to getting kuto, she told me. Let’s wait until you’re 15.

That’s too far out, I said, but I was a kid. There was nary a room for negotiating. 

3. 

When I finally turned 15, I didn’t care anymore whether I had long hair or not. 

Like a typical teenager, I was plagued with many insecurities about my body. I wasn’t pretty enough, I wasn’t curvy enough, et cetera, et cetera. To combat these patriarchal afflictions, my weapon of choice was physicalized nonchalance.  

I wore ratty clothes, I grew my nails long, and I stopped brushing my hair. I didn’t just tell people I didn’t care — I also looked like I didn’t care. 

4. 

Even as an adult, I still harbor the same disinterest in kakikayan or just general hair grooming. Yes, I use a hair brush whenever I blow-dry my hair at night. But in the morning, in between getting out of bed and walking out the door for work, I never reach for a brush to comb the sleep out of my head. 

There’s privilege at play here, of course. My friends used to tell me that if my hair didn’t look good disheveled, I would brush my hair more often. That’s true. They were right.

My hair isn’t perfect, but it isn’t frizzy or stiff either. And, most importantly, it is straight. Having straight, fine hair made it easier to pull off the look of aestheticized neglect. 

5. 

Remember that time in the 2000s when everyone and their mothers were “rebonding” and “relaxing” their hair? Straightness used to be one of the yardsticks by which Filipino society measured beauty and worth.

Everyone wanted to achieve that sumusunod-sa-galaw smoothness for their locks, and thank goodness my hair was somehow adjacent to that standard. We didn’t have the money for chemical treatment otherwise. 

6. 

Would people respect me more if I went out into the world all dolled up and put together?

Maybe. 

Do I care? 

I’m not sure. 

7. 

I don’t have a regular hair dresser or a preferred salon unlike some of my friends. In the last 20 years, no single person has cut my hair twice. Change over permanence; discreteness over continuity. 

8. 

Today I picked a salon that replaced the last one I went to. Same location, different staff.

The stylist asked if I had a picture of the hair cut I wanted, and I showed him a photo I got off Pinterest. 

“That’s AI,” he said, laughing. “But I can do something similar.” 

After the haircut, as he was drying my hair and demonstrating simple techniques for styling, he told me that my hair was actually wavy. 

“You have to blow-dry all of it,” he said. “Leaving some parts damp will make it look frizzy.”

I said okay, will do. A half-truth, of course. I will at least try.  

9. 

My hair is now chin-length. Layered as usual. No bangs this time. It’s cute. I don’t mind it.