My Femininity Is On My Head

I am not a very girly kind of girl. I wear makeup and jewelry if I remember, or if I have time. My wardrobe has more blue and green than it does pink. I enjoy looking pretty, but I favor looking comfortable, and mature.

All my girliness comes in the form of my long hair. I've been considering even just cutting bangs for a while, but I can't bring myself to chop off any of my hair. I get the ends trimmed every few months, but that's about it. But there's a reason behind it...



My hair is what makes me feel girly, and sexy. I love tossing it, styling it, braiding it, curling it, brushing it out of my face, tucking it behind my ear, or throwing it over my shoulder. I generally hate when people touch it, but I love when a guy I like runs his fingers through it. Long story short, it makes me feel beautiful.

This wasn't always the case.

When I was younger, I was going through a lot of bullshit and something I decided to do was chop my hair really short. A lot of you have probably heard me talk about this before, because I realize now what an effect it had on my personality and my self-image, but few of you have ever seen it.

At about age 13, if I had to guess

It was an interesting decision. I can't bring myself to regret the decision, because it forced me to find my personality. But I also wonder if I would be a more secure person if I didn't spent those years of my life being ridiculed because of my hair. For years, I was mistaken for a little boy, and teased relentlessly because of it. I tried to compensate with makeup and jewelry, and took those two concepts to extremes. Children are cruel, and I was unhappy a lot of the time, and when I made a new start in high school, the very first thing I did was start to grow out my hair.

Last November, up in Massachusetts

My hair isn't what makes me a girl, I know that. It isn't the only thing that makes me beautiful. In fact, I had more boyfriends with short hair than I have with long hair. But it's something that makes me feel pretty, and confident. When I'm feeling sassy and spunky, I'll give my head a shake to throw my hair out of my face and show you that I'm feeling that way.

Do you have one specific feature that makes you feel girly or manly? What is it? Why does it make you feel that way? Is it something obvious, or something more subtle? Would you ever change it? Do you feel like you would lose something important if you did?

~Jessica