Our Southern "Crowning Glories"

Why is it so important for women to have long hair? What is it that draws most men to long hair? Here in the south we are constantly told not to cut our hair, that men love long hair that is silky smooth and touchable. And if you dye it, you better not have any roots showing, especially during football season when fans sitting behind you in the stands can look down on those roots!! Ronda Rich writes about long hair in the wonderful southern belles' guide What Southern Women Know (That Every Woman Should Know) and Marlyn Schwartz writes about our crowning glories in both A Southern Belle Primer (or Why Princess Margaret will Never Be a Kappa Kappa Gamma) and New Times in the Old South (Or Why Scarlett's in Therapy and Tara's Going Condo). While the names of these books may sound quite comedic, many a southern belle, live by the rules in these books and we take them very seriously.

So why am I writing about HAIR????? Well I am wanting to grow my hair out. I am 38 years old and I want long hair. Well not loooonnnnnggggg hair but a good shoulder length hair style. This is going to take some work on my part and on my hair stylist part. You see, when I separated from my first husband back in the early 90's, I went and cut my hair off. He was a long hair woman man and didn't like my hair cut. Now I know it is my hair and I can and should do what I want, but I am old fashioned, I want my husband to be 100% happy with me or as close to it as we can get. In fact, he hated short hair. So the first thing I did after separating was go get my hair cut off. It was easy to take care of and it was LIBERATING!!! Ever since, I have basically kept it short. My husband loves my hair like it is but said he would love me no matter what I decide to do and the pictures I have shown him, he liked. So here goes....time to suffer the odd styles, the bushy styles, the awkward stages and see if by this time next year, I can have some resemblance of a "long" for me hair style.