Bangs, The Makeover With Existential Side Effects

The time I sewage bangs, I went to spot “Ghost World” pinch my champion friend, Emmy. For nan first clip since I started frequenting Vidiots, nan theatre was dominated by groups of friends alternatively than couples. That night, a cardinal hushed “sorry!’s” could beryllium heard passim nan auditorium arsenic hordes of alternatively inclined women — because location were mostly women — flattened themselves to move done their row. Next to me, Emmy whispered arsenic nan movie began, “They look moreover amended than I imagined,” alluding to my bangs. This was nan world I believed I had committed to successful getting bangs: female friendship, indie theaters, Terry Zwigoff, an appreciation for vintage Steve Buscemi. The fringe was moreover a small shorter than I’d had successful mind, a magnitude I hoped would beryllium publication arsenic intentional and not an oversight by a hairdresser my mother would later deem “clearly suspicious of you.”

We ran into respective of Emmy’s friends extracurricular nan theatre afterward. There was joyousness successful pretending this was a complete coincidence and not a highly probable event; these were each ladies pinch bangs. I told them I sewage excavation hours agone and nan group emitted a corporate purr. I felt transported to someone’s mediate schoolhouse chamber while opinionated connected nan area of Eagle Rock Boulevard and Yosemite. “You look for illustration you’ve had them for a agelong time,” personification said to nan abstraction conscionable supra my eyes. No 1 other had affirmed my bangs successful rather nan aforesaid way.

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Months earlier I’d moved from an east-of-Eastside suburb to Los Feliz, wherever nan quickest way to assimilation appeared to beryllium nan 1 I could trim crossed my forehead. Every style of bang abounded — bottleneck, Birkin, curtain — including a fewer they must person invented successful my outer-city absence (enter: Jane Austen bangs). Getting bangs was a section rite of passage; moreover if they flopped, I’d beryllium mounting retired connected nan aforesaid Hero’s Journey arsenic astir of my caller neighborhood.

I’d recovered nan reference photograph of ‘00s Penélope Cruz connected Pinterest. The hostility betwixt her timeless beauty and somewhat choppy bangs publication arsenic a playful confrontation pinch anyone who dared to observe her. You couldn’t defy her beauty, because she’d already done truthful first — and successful doing so, had only managed to reenforce nan truth of her beauty. The image is, each astatine once, a thesis, counterargument and rebuttal proving her capacity to stun. I’d considered nan comparatively safe curtain bang, which was judge not to offend — and judge to beryllium nothing. I’d received a fewer suggestions to spell for thing tinier, edgier. These were group who had religion successful my face, nan measurement Penélope’s group had successful hers, which flattered maine for vague, Sagittarius sun-related reasons.

Bangs were forbidden successful my location of origin. My mother had much of a ’90s Brooke Shields side-part imagination for me, and truthful it was. Bangs were for nan meek, nan insecure, those pinch thing to hide — aliases alternatively those going done immoderate benignant of life crisis. But owning my desire to retreat was successful itself an assertion. I sewage bangs erstwhile before, months into leaving location for college, and alternatively than consciousness captive down my hair, I felt astir myself. Aesthetically, I now led pinch a determination of who I was, nan trim informing each first impression. Intrinsic to that aforesaid trim was nan declaration that I’d reclaimed immoderate portion of myself, for myself, down nan bangs.

“Bangs … are truthful often framed arsenic a situation decision, and I honestly deliberation that communicative is simply a small unfair,” Lauren Bailey-Chaidez, proprietor of Eastside salon Feverfew — celebrated for its bangs and shags — tells me. “Hair tin beryllium profoundly affectional and expressive, but that doesn’t automatically make it irrational.” The Penélope image had been shown to my stylist, and while she didn’t situation inquire maine “What’s wrong?” she did return maine done nan regular statement of questioning that mightiness person revealed what was, successful fact, up. No damning life arena preceded my alteration successful style, though I’d precocious stopped making love and recovered immoderate unusual joyousness successful perceiving bangs arsenic different barrier-to-entry to anyone who tried. The truth that self-assertion ran synonymous pinch barrier-to-entry did not hap to maine astatine nan time.

I returned to Vidiots nan week aft “Ghost World” to spot “In nan Mood for Love.” Being azygous for six years caused maine to presume that everyone was arsenic prone to going unsocial arsenic I was, and I naively expected nan crowd would beryllium made up of Criterion’s astir illustrious antheral subscribers. Alone successful nan concessions line, I spotted one: a man I went connected 1 date pinch a twelvemonth ago. The 1 who called maine six weeks later, connected my birthday, to opportunity he’d been engaged and would beryllium indefinitely but who texted maine from nan airdrome connected Christmas, crafted personalized memes, and sent screenshots of what Co-Star told him astir maine — and america — earlier retreating truthful abruptly that I had to punctual myself I hadn’t made him up each clip it happened. The 1 who, 8 months prior, I sincerely thanked for his clip earlier saying I would nary longer beryllium successful touch. I thought location was a chance he mightiness not admit maine down my bangs earlier he trim successful beforehand of me. He was truthful bully astatine making maine mobility whether I was moreover there; possibly nan bangs had worked. Then he turned. Among his questions astir outdated specifications of my life, he suggested we drawback up sometime. The thought was liable to drawback occurrence betwixt us. I had hoped nan bangs would repel him, but my caller facial accessory grounded to beryllium a punctuation betwixt america successful nan measurement I’d imagined. It wasn’t nan first clip I’d hoped to pass aesthetically what I couldn’t pass verbally.

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I trimmed my bangs aft a six-week deliberation. I called my mom conscionable to perceive her opportunity it: If I grew my bangs out, I’d beryllium letting nan world in. I considered really increasing them retired mightiness someway alteration my fate, pull caller things (people). My imagination crowded pinch strands successful nan aftermath of my indecision. I made an assignment astatine nan salon conscionable to cancel hours later.

Three weeks into this deliberation, I met J. He came retired of nowhere, it seemed, isolated from I knew precisely wherever he came from: nan aforesaid small-ish municipality that I did, including nan aforesaid precocious school. After a fewer dates, being seen not only for who I was but for who I had been became quickly terrifying. The small heart to support my bangs returned. The thought that bangs are nan consequence of a breakup (or break pinch reality) was abruptly reversed; nan situation astatine nan dawn of a caller narration aft not having been successful 1 for years rippled acold greater than nan steady, dull situation of continuing to not person one. In my newfound visibility, I doubled down connected nan style that concealed thing — thing — astir me, if only a fewer inches of forehead.

Alyson Zetta Williams is simply a Los Angeles-based writer who tin beryllium recovered astatine sorry4444.substack.com and @alysonzw.

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