I LOVE my ponytail right now

OK.

My hairdresser maintains that women in their mid-thirties always tend to grow out their hair as a desperate effort to hang onto their youth.

I maintain that women in their mid-thirties are reclaiming their hair freedom now that their babies are no longer yanking it while nursing or drinking from bottles. Just a guess, though.

Anyway. I have been growing my hair out for a couple years now, getting trims every 6 weeks or so (much to Jerry’s chagrin) so that it would stay healthy and shiny. My hair has always been freakishly shiny (such that strangers stop me and ask what I use on it to make it shiny), and I attribute that to three things: first, it grows that way, second, I get regular trims to ward off the split ends, and third, I almost never use a hairdryer on anything more than the bangs (fringe for all you Aussies and Brits reading — lol).

In the past MONTH it has reached the length that brings me Great Ponytail Happiness. All of a sudden.

This is after a day of wearing it up on a ponytail:

Squeeeeeeeeee!

I don’t care if I’m grasping at my youth. I just like it. 🙂 My hair hasn’t been this long since my wedding day — and I don’t think it was this long then, actually. So last time was probably 1992, when I grew it out for the Debutante Ball and then had it cut to chin-length the next day (everyone at the next Deb party asked me if I had been wearing a wig the night before — LOL!)…

I didn’t enjoy it as much last time — probably because I tried to style it more and fought the fact that it is so very straight. Now I’m happy to have super-straight hair. Helen has funky curls at the nape of her neck, and fighting with that (and the resulting tangles) for the past 4 years has made me realize just what a blessing straight hair is.

Yay.