Why does your hair always feel so fabulous the day it's cut and then never again until the next time? I had my hair cut today for the first time since January and it feels so nice. It doesn't really look that different it just feels all soft and shiny and it smells AMAZING as they used some heat protectant that smells like a holiday. I had a conversation with my hairdresser about how it's harder to cut hair when people have masks on as you can't properly see the shape of their face so you're sort of winging it if they want a completely new style. It's a bizarre handicap that I hadn't thought about.
It made me think about the handicaps we sometimes give ourselves when we wear figurative masks. When we mask our real personalities to try and fit in better or feel like we belong somewhere. I'm quite good at trying to blend in. I think it might have something to do with moving so drastically at a young age and having to adapt to living in America when I was 9. You'd think that there wasn't such a big difference between the US and the UK but the differences are actually huge. I only realized how different when I moved back here. I always felt a little odd in America, like I didn't quite fit, I presume because of my British start in life. I found when I moved back, I still feel that way because now I'm Americanized and don't see the world quite like a Brit. Living in South Korea for two years was another place I had to learn to blend in. The blending was harder there as it was still very mono-cultured in the small town I lived in, so I stood out as a white person with my "steep" nose. I'm trying to figure out if the blending in thing is a good skill to have, and think perhaps not. I think in my case, it may have blurred my ability to figure out who I am exactly and what I really want versus what I think is expected of me. It does however allow me to add cross-cultural communication as a skill on my CV. I'm also quite adept at understanding people who may not speak English very clearly. Sadly neither of these skills are high up on requirements in the small very English town I currently live in.
At least when I go for my interview tomorrow my hair will smell amazing and hopefully still be soft and shiny. Shame it's not appropriate to ask the interviewer to touch and smell your hair and take it into consideration when offering a job. I'll leave all my figurative masks at home and just be my glorious Americanized British self and let my true Karen shine through. I now have to come up with another outfit as I already wore my "interview outfit" last time.
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