Hair Parting - A Dilemma

I don't remember exactly when I decided to part my hair on the side of my head, but it was somewhere between the ages of sixteen and seventeen. I used to mess with my hair a lot at that age like lots of girls do, and I got the notion to part it on the side. I wasn't so sure I liked it at first, but I decided it made me look more sophisticated and maybe even a little older.

Looking a little older is always a good thing when seventeen, unless you were my friend, Catie. She did look older. I always thought she looked like she could be well into her twenties, and it didn't serve her well in school for some reason. Maybe she wouldn't buy kids beer or something. Or maybe it was because she was just so damn nice and friendly, like a Labrador Retriever that hasn't been trained. It wasn't the forceful friendliness that people talked about though. It was that she looked older than your average high school senior, "like someone's mom" was one comment I remember. She was new to the school as well, poor girl, so she was never to achieve the popularity she desired. She did part her hair on the side. Maybe she should have parted hers down the middle.

The greatest advantage to my new side part was that my hair was easier to style. The major cowlick right in the very middle of my bangs worked well to the side, because that's the way it wanted to go anyway. I didn't have to curl and re-curl it and then spray it with an entire can of hair spray to keep it in place anymore. In fact, I was able to give up hair spray altogether!

It wasn't all love though. My new problem was in which side on which to part my hair. The right side seemed the obvious choice due to the aforementioned cowlick, but then I ran into trouble on the back of my head. The whorl or crown or whatever the hell you want to call it was on the left side. So what worked so beautifully on the front did not work well at all on the back.

I would change the side every so often when I got frustrated with working whichever unruly hair quality was on the opposing side, but I always ended up back on the right. The cowlick reigned. I mean, I could see the back of my head most of the time, so what did that matter? But then I'd get self-conscious, because everyone else on God's green earth could see the back of my head, and I felt like I may as well wear a big "loser" sign. I fretted over my hair. I cursed it. I brushed and curled and washed and dried and sprayed and coaxed and begged it, but hair doesn't care. Hair just is. And my hair happens to be a pain in the ass.

Now that parts aren't so structured as they once were, I can do a sort of diagonal thing over my head sometimes that doesn't look all that bad, and it caters to the cowlick and the whorl. I still switch sides sometimes too though. I don't struggle with it as much as I used to. After all, I am a housewife, and I can go several days at a time without really seeing anyone outside my family. And I really don't care what the crossing guard or the people in the grocery store think of my hair. If I start getting goofy about it, I just put on a hat or pull it up in a ponytail. I don't even have to wash it every single day if I don't feel like it. (oh, shut up)

As long as I'm doing what I'm doing, the whole part problem won't concern me. I just don't know if I'm really less worried about it, or if I don't get out enough to worry about it. It's probably the latter, because I worry about everything. I suppose I can expect this to become a major issue again if I go get a job. I'm sure perfect knife-edge parts will become all the rage too, and I'll look like the old matron that I am with my bangs and my wherever-it-happens-to-fall part. Like I'm so fashionable as it is. Why do I bother?