Dear 25: The sun wants its UVs back

I’m Irish-Italian and this oxymoronic combination manifests itself through hair that is so unruly I stressed out the night before sleepovers as a tween. Wear a hat? Don’t sleep? Rush to shower? Tell friends I seizure at night? A head band? Shit F&ck where did I put my head band? Remember. This was pre-flat iron. We got the Internet in 1991 but no flat irons until, I don’t know, too late? America and it’s rotting values.

Post flat iron I am OK as long as I’m not in humidity. And I have this ritual of marveling at my long stringy hair before I go in for a cut. I make a braid that has the circumfince of a toothbrush. I revert back to 1996 and re-live Friday night at the skating rink this time with non-pube-hair.

Although, at almost 32, this isn’t important to me anymore. I’m a mother. I shell pistachios for my daughter’s lunch at midnight. I use phrases like, “Lets think about it,” or “I want to speak to your manager right now. What do you mean you don’t match other store’s coupons?” and “I’m here for a 3,000 mile check up.” Seriously, I’m a Maverick adult. I’ve overcome my hair insecurity. My anxieties are focused on spotted skin, jello arms, cultural irrelevance, gray hair, dry heels, fat fingers, drooping eyelids, flat ass, has-been-ing, wrinkles, thin upper lip, crooked nose post accident, losing “It,” pinky toe corns, hair — in new places — really not OK places, suppressed metabolism, dry elbows, dry hands, dry personality, cynicism, becoming my mother, shouting “does your mother know what you’re wearing!?” mom jeans, single-mom stigmas, thinking “If I were 25 again I would have washed my face at night, taken less pics at the bar (seriously, guys, we get it, drinking is fun) eaten more fiber, popped less zits, and focused more on my career than men.”

Anyway. Internet, I got a hair cut.