Snip! Snip!

"Snip! Snip!" is what my mom always says under her breath when she sees an older woman with long hair. She is of the opinion that women of a certain age shouldn't have long hair. Period.

I used to think it was a funny tic of hers. I found it surprisingly close-minded, given my mother's usually open-minded take on things. Who's to say what length your hair should be? Is this the army? If it looks good on you, if you like it, who cares?

Lately, I've been growing my hair long. Mostly, I've been too greedy with my precious 'away' time to spend it at a hair salon (gym, here I come!) but, to be honest, there is something else at work besides neglect: I harbor fantasies of long, youthful, Pantene-commercial-worthy locks. Like many women, I go through phases with my hair. And apparently my current hair phase is "wishing I was 10 years younger with a different life".

I am married. I live in a small town. I have two kids and dog and a mortgage and house with a white fence out back. I am 37. I don't like to use the hair dryer or the flat iron and when my hair grows past my shoulders, I pretty much put my hair in a perma-ponytai 24/7. These all add up to a typical, sensible, bobbed haircut, no?

Mom, am I old enough to merit your "Snip! Snip!"?

When I pick up People magazine on my bedside table at the gym, I am stunned by the photos of famous women in their late thirties. Through plastic surgery or hair extensions or damn good genes or all of the above, they often look amazing, glamorous and youthful. Many of them, most of them, have thick, LONG, gorgeous hair. But some of them look rather sad, like they want the world to think they are still 18. Like they're clinging to something that is fading away.

Then, when I pick up Good Housekeeping or Redbook and read the personal articles written by mere-mortal women my age with their almost-always-bobbed haircuts, I am often struck by how they look rather old, like Capital M MOMS.

These are my options, it seems. I can either grasp and clutch at my fading youth with Botox and hair-extensions or I can succumb to gravity in elastic-waisted, newscaster-bobbed oblivion. There's got to be some middle ground here somewhere.

Speaking of elastic-waisted, I'm officially out of my maternity and first-and-fourth trimester jeans. (Yay!) E is 9 months old and I'm getting back into most of my pre-pregnancy clothes. But one old, favorite pair of jeans in particular just won't cut it anymore.

I bought these AG jeans a couple of years before I got pregnant with Z. They were an expensive splurge and I wore them ALL. THE. TIME. They fit me well and I felt comfortable in them.

About a year after I had Z, I was able to squeeze back into them, as long as I had a long, blouse-y shirt to cover the Top O' the Muffin. They weren't quite as effortless to wear as they had been but they were okay, passable, You look good FOR A MOM.

Now I can once again squeeze myself back into them. But on closer inspection you can see that the proportions are wrong and the rise is just too darn low for me now. Sure the top button closes but it makes my belly looks like a boneless Sharpei that's been stuffed into a tube sock. It's not pretty. (And it makes me understand why women get tummy tucks. I could just "Snip! Snip!" it right off.)

Then, those jeans looked, and felt, great. Now, I think I need to let them go. I can let this go.

So earlier this week, I went to our local outlet mall and bought myself a pair of decent, higher cut jeans. I'm not going to win any pageants in them but they actually fit and I don't have to constantly check that the Sharpei is covered.

I also got my hair cut. I've accepted that without hair extensions and serious time devoted to boring things like hair drying and straightening, my hair isn't ever going to look like a Pantene commercial. That I am more than my hair and my bought-in-my-twenties jeans. That youth is fleeting but youthfulness is a feeling with no expiration date.

I can let this go, without "letting myself go".

Before
Long hair and old, too-tight jeans. More youthful or more lazy/desperate?

After

More sensible bob, more sensible jeans, more acceptance.
(Plus, let's be honest, the darker wash is just more flattering and less... 1999.)