A new life, a new hairdo

I took a decision last year, to change my hairstyle. It came about as decisions to change my hair usually come about - sitting in the chair, waiting for the dreaded question from G, my current hair chopper of choice "So, what's it to be this time?" I hate this question so much that every so often I am provoked into a rage and snarl "Cut the whole lot off", which he then duly does, and I duly regret, for at least three months until the stubble has grown out again. Talk about a vicious circle. So this decision, was the anti-decision. I was going to NOT get it cut. Ever again in fact. I was going to grow it. I was going to grow it so long I could audition for a revival of Jesus Christ Superstar, and so wide that I might even be cast in a revival of a 1970s Barbra Streisand remake. I was going to go Jewfro dammit. G's eyes widen when I tell him this. Go for it, he says, head wagging from side to side, but I bet you it won't last. First sign of stress and you'll be back here BEGGING for a choppy bob. Only it's exactly a year to the day since I took that decision, and I haven't asked for the bob. I have however been back to G for help. I had no idea what an industrial challenge it was to grow your hair out. I thought it grew out obligingly in Jennifer Aniston style layers. No. It doesn't. It grows out the way you put on weight. In all the wrong places. G had to intervene every three months to "cut it back into its growing shape". Let me tell you, if you have curly hair, cutting your hair into a shape that will grow the way you want it to, is like herding cats on a rainy night. And the other thing about growing curly hair is, that you could grow it 20 feet long - you could in fact rival Rapunzel - and it could still come off as a slightly untidy version of Anne Hathaway from Les Miserables. Curls don't get longer and longer. They get rounder and fatter. I step out of the shower, feeling round my back for whatever it is that's slapping against my bottom. Oh right. That would be my hair, which reaches halfway to my toes when it's wet. Slap some conditioner on (and boy you need vats of the stuff when you are growing curly hair), leave it 10 minutes and hey presto, it's bounced right back up to ear level again. Of course one of the benefits is, that when it's cold, you no longer need a scarf. You already have a natural one clustered thickly around your neck. When it's windy it slaps you in the face a lot and because it grows out rather than down there is nothing you can do about this other than use an Alice Band, which I refuse to do because it reminds me of a repressed Geography teacher I had back in the eighties who used to wear skirts of unfashionable length. It won't stay in a bun because it's too thick. It's too wide to be trapped comprehensively in a barrette or a rubber band. A ponytail of curls is a complete contradiction. When it rains unexpectedly I wrestle with the hood of my coat for ages trying to tuck in all the stray tendrils so they don't trickle down my neck. Occasionally I  moan about it. Well, get it cut then, say my exasperated friends. But I can't cut it now. Long hair transforms your view of yourself, adjusts your character slightly, makes you feel, oddly, a bit floaty and pre-Raphaelite. And there's another thing about long hair. Just as in Elizabethan times, long hair denotes health. My sister was diagnosed with cancer 2 years ago and lost all her dark brown curly hair to the Chemotherapy Demon. She died before it could grow back fully. Long hair is a luxury, a gift. It may also be a pain in the arse but it's a privilege. I guess I'll be doing my Timotei girl impression for some time to come.