Hair Saga, Part 5: The Identity Crisis

I have a confession: I am a hair straightening-aholic. I'm addicted to frying my head and making my apartment smell like burning hair like some people are addicted to alcohol. If I go to class sporting curly braids, or worse, just letting the curls unravel around my face, I'm ready to curl into a ball and die. I will wake up an hour early for the sole purpose of sticking my hair between two hot iron rods. In some cultures, this is sure to be hair torture. After the realization that I've killed my hair, I should be doing everything in my power to revive it. But alas, fashion seems to kill--both my productivity and my hair.

The thing is, I only seem to have this addiction in college. I may not have forced bleach blonde onto my hair, but as much as I pride myself on not being a yoga pant wearing, hair torturing college girl, somewhere between freshman and sophomore year, I've become a sheep in the crowd. Not only that, but I start saying "like" more, listening to terrible pop music, and *gasp* sitting in the back of classrooms. It's as though my summer self is observing me from afar, yelling at me not to become this way, that we're stronger than this, but get that flat iron on me, and all of a sudden I'm quoting Miley Cyrus lyrics.

She did it...

You know how alcoholics' friends and family say, when their addiction really gets to them "you're losing yourself! Your addiction is changing you!" Maybe flat-iron addictions aren't yet classified as a mental illness, but I'm pretty sure it's turning me into a teenage girl. And if that's not the most terrifying thing you've ever heard, I don't know what is.

Going home for the summer, I don't even think about touching that flat iron. Sometimes, I even forget to wear makeup. I'm too busy thinking about humanity and shit, and hiking through the vast wilderness that is Mt. Nittany. Okay, so maybe part of it is the realization that it's far too humid to even bother, but 50% of my refusal to spend an hour on my hair is that it's stupid, life is short, blah blah, sentimental stuff.

Nature-me even goes so far as to sport a bandana 

So which one of my hair's identities is the "real me"? Am I doomed to be a freshman girl forever? It's a known fact that hippies can't have straight hair, so if I'm going to identify myself as one, I can't half-ass it (or half hair it).

I suppose I could just put my hair in braids and be Pippi Longstockings forever.

Namaste.