I Experienced Several Hair Traumas
1) When I was 4 years old I thought it would be a good idea to cut my own hair. I’m not sure my exact train of thought, but I do remember sitting at my little desk in my room, looking at my little round tipped red scissors and then it just happened. That’s really all I remember, but apparently I either knew I shouldn’t have done it, or looked in the mirror and knew I did a bad job, because I put on my jacket with my hood on right after, and my dad and I went to go pick up my mom from her work. I had to use the bathroom, so my mom took me, and when she took off my coat and hood, she discovered my handiwork. Some of my hair was still below my shoulders and normal length and some of it…well, some of it was about a half inch long. Needless to say, my parents were not happy with my DIY look!
(Luckily my hair had grown out by kindergarten, as you can see in the above picture from my birthday party when I was 6, I'm the one the red arrow is pointing to. And yes, I totally took a picture of a picture from a scrapbook page that an old friend of mine framed for me!)2) Part way through 3rd grade, my mom thought it would be just adorable to give me a short pixie haircut. I’m not sure what possessed her to do this to me--I have never been able to pull off a short look and never will. These chubby cheeks have been with me my whole life! But I got the cut, and immediately hated it. However, there’s not much you can do when you’re a kid, and they won’t let you wear hats to school.
The day after my cut, I had to go into school late for some reason, I think it was because of a dentist appointment. When I walked into my classroom, everyone was in the middle of reading time, with their books out. I came in and sat down quietly in my seat near the front, and after a minute I heard a comment from behind that just mortified me. Some boy in my class raised his hand and asked, “Teacher, is there a new boy in our class?” Yes, he was referring to me, with my horribly short haircut! I really don’t think I’ve ever lived that one down, which is why I’ve never again had hair shorter than my shoulders, and part of why I was so sensitive about my bad post wedding chop.
I Romanticized Breaking A Bone, Until I Realized I Hate Pain
I was kind of a crazy kid in that I spent a year in elementary school trying to break my leg. I was obsessed with reading (I read more books than anyone else in my library’s summer reading club 2 years in a row) and my favorite was the Baby Sitters Club. Remember the one where Claudia breaks her leg because one of the kids she is sitting plays a prank on her? Yeah, well because of that, I thought it would be *so cool* to have a broken leg. Thoughts of wheelchairs and crutches, and awesome casts getting signed by my friends danced in my head. I had romanticized being injured for some odd reason.
And as a result, I tried everything from dropping rocks on my shins, to spending recess jumping off the highest part of the jungle gym over and over. I think my parents thought I was insane, but they never really tried to stop me (at least not that I remember). Maybe they thought if I ever did manage to break my leg, I’d learn my lesson because of all the pain I’d be in (and I’m a huge wimp about pain).
It took me a year or so to put two and two together and realize that my breaking a bone would actually hurt. And as I already mentioned, I cannot handle pain. Or even the thought of it. I totally fainted and puked the first time I got my ears pierced. I still can’t even watch the show House when they show the bloody parts or, like, needles going toward someone’s eye. If I don’t look away in time, a cold sweat washes over me and I have to run to the bathroom (although I’m ok, and have never actually puked from watching gross TV, I just think I might!). And don’t even get me started on if I cut my finger chopping veggies for dinner….on more than one occasion Mr. Cola has had to finish cooking for me, while I sit in the corner and try not to think about my bloody finger!
So now I do whatever I can to avoid pain. I’ve become a very careful person, and to this day I’ve still never had a broken bone. The closest I ever came to my dream of a broken leg was for Halloween, in 5th grade, I dressed up as a car crash victim. My mom helped my cover an old snow boot with white medical tape, and I decorated it like a cast with markers. I thought I was so cool…
(This is from my 5th grade Halloween party, I’m the one in the middle with the car crash blood stains on my shirt. Another photo of a photo from my framed scrapbook page, it’s the best I could find without pestering my parents to dig through their storage unit.)My American Idol Dreams Were Trashed Before The Show Even Began
I cannot sing to save my life. No really. I know lots and lots of people say that, but have they ever been told by their music teacher in 4th grade that they have no talent? For reals.
I had sort of an odd music teacher. Or a great one, it’s hard to tell. She was obsessed with Trinidad, and always made us sing songs from there, which made for some odd concerts for the parents, but I guess made us more cultured? Anyway. There were always drums involved, which I thought were really cool. And if you were playing them, you didn’t have to sing as much, or she didn’t notice you I guess. But at one point, in 4th grade, we had to all sing something without any kind of drums or instruments. Bad idea on her part, because without me being distracted by playing instruments, I was free to belt it out. And, yeah. I was literally told to “just mouth the words” in front of my entire elementary school music class. This has totally scared me for life, especially after I broke out my tape deck and recorded myself, to see if I was really that bad. I was. And still am.
So to this day I do not sing where anyone can hear me, ever! At birthday parties I only ever mouth the words to Happy Birthday. I detest karaoke, and will not go, for fear someone will try to force me on stage. There are only two places I’ll actually sing out loud now: someplace where the music is too loud for anyone to hear me, like at a concert, where everyone else is singing, or in my car. I’ve got some serious mid-90s rap skills (well, in my head I do), and my car is the only safe place for me to bust a rhyme. Dogg Pound or Eazy-E anyone?
(Of course this experience didn’t stop me from staying in the chorus class, because you got out of something else if you were in it! This is a lovely photo from my 5th grade yearbook.)Now it’s your time to share, tell me one of your childhood secrets that has impacted you as an adult!
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