Hair is Us: The Armor of a Great Haircut

When I sat down in the salon chair, I told the young guy who cuts my hair that I needed a haircut that said I was a ‘take charge’ type of person. I told him that my usual haircut with the wispy bangs wouldn’t send the message I needed to send, that I had a big event coming up and I had to look formidable.

I needed a badass haircut.

He nodded at me, tapped his comb against his palm, walked around the chair, looking at my head.

“Do you know what I’m saying? I need to look powerful.”

“I get it. I get it,” he said, still surveying the back of my head and looking at me in the huge mirror.

“So, do you know what you’re going to do?” I asked.

“Not really. But we’ll get there. We always do.”

I love this guy.

The haircut that he gave me was serious as a heart attack. Prison matron serious. Communist Party attendance taker serious. Kathy Bates in Misery serious – roll up your pant leg and hand me the axe serious.

Severe wouldn’t begin to describe it.

I walked back to my car and immediately drove to Walgreen’s to buy a new pair of sunglasses because my old ones broke, and I thought sunglasses would ‘soften’ my look or at least disguise my identity. While I was in the store, trying on different sunglasses, an old friend whom I hadn’t seen in probably ten years, shouted out, “Jan! It’s Jan Wilberg!”

And then he told me how I looked so great, so healthy, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I was recovering from having a Nurse Ratchet makeover at the hair salon by buying sunglasses. Too much time had passed since we’d seen each other to delve into this weird intimate detail about my day.

By this morning, my scary haircut had calmed down. It still reveals everything about my face – there is no hiding. This, I think, is the essence of being badass. Not hiding. Owning your business, your face, your outlook, your loves.

So, I texted the guy who cuts my hair with a link to a newspaper article in which the organization I work with figures prominently and said, “This is why I needed a badass haircut yesterday.”

I am ready.