The Pretty Twin: How a Haircut Shed a Disheveled Layer and Unboxed a Level

Cutting my hair was not only freeing; it was symbolic. I lopped off excess layers, shed who I tried in vain to be, and leveled up toward Me. Now comfortable in my own skin and confident in my abilities, I am somehow different from who I thought I was yet simultaneously exactly the same.

I typically cut my hair only once every two and a half years to give to Wigs for Kids, an organization that donates hair to cancer patients. I don’t even get it trimmed in the meantime because that would cost money, and try as I might, my straight lines are always a bit blurred or off-kilter. I can’t stand hair on my face or in my way, so for at least the past twenty years, I scrunchie it up unless sleeping. I did manage to wear all twenty-six inches down for my wedding. That was over five years ago.

One sunny Saturday, as typical as for any other two-and-a-half year haircut, I went to a hair salon full of anticipation. Both my hair and I had become so unruly that my grumblings about leaning on it or tangling it were not so easily brushed aside. I felt it everywhere. It was too much. So, when a local nonprofit near and dear to my heart hosted a Cut-A-Thon to raise money for rural children with learning challenges, I gleefully jumped at the prudent philanthropic opportunity to help two charities at once.

Since I was already getting my usual ten inches cut off, I expected my highly sensitive family to notice, but it would be relatively unemotional compared to much larger issues, like being required to wear socks with boots or the experimental household ban on Doritos. My hairstyle wouldn’t personally affect them, and I would look much the same as I did before, so they were emotionally uninvested. For four months prior, my husband listened to me talk about wanting a new look, saw me scanning different hairstyles, and helped me experiment with new looks using an app. He pooh-poohed nearly all the pixie cuts as either too Jamie Lee Curtis or too complain-to-a-manager, but he eventually endorsed whatever I wanted because it was my hair, not his.

I made my final decision as I sat staring in the mirror at the salon, and I emerged twenty-four inches lighter. When I walked by the window on the way inside my house afterwards, with my husband sitting at the table in full view, I immediately knew how he felt about it without even being in the same house. Momentarily knocked sheepishly awkward, I breathed slowly and paused. Then, I set my jaw, lifted my head, and opened the door to face both my husband and a higher level of Self.

In my early childhood, I was quiet and reserved, scared of any man who tried to talk to me and never far away from my mother, when she was not working. Growing up, the options—and there were always so many—could all be right depending on the lens, so I taught myself not to choose. People came to view me as either too wishy-washy or too finicky, and those things were shamefully wrong, so I learned to read other people, to settle on whatever they were doing, or what they thought I should do, or simply refusing to settle at all. I was a square peg hiding out in a box shoved inside incrementally larger boxes of peers and society, and pounded into a round hole where trouble and boredom could not find me. I’m still puzzling out how to unpack all those boxes, but nothing beats a new and challenging puzzle.

To double the fun, I have bonus boxes! I’m a twin, and I was not the smart twin. Because I was so intensely calculating, my well-intentioned farmsteading grandmother, lover of late ‘40s leopard print and cigarettes and who cared for us often in our early years, tried to coax me out of the shell she thought I was in. She encouraged me to “just wait and see” what my sister did and to follow her lead if I took too long to try something new or to make a decision about something. Compounded with gazillions of other instances of the same reinforced message, I came to believe that my way of being was not only socially unacceptable but also undesirable. If I couldn’t be desired for my innate way of being, by the time I was in high school, I learned I might have a shot at being easy—agreeable, gullible, unconcerned—so I became the pretty twin.

My sister was valedictorian. I was mad at her for a long time because it took her so little effort to achieve high grades. My grandmother had always said that my sister would be valedictorian and I would be salutatorian, but I could always tell she added that last part as an afterthought, just so I wouldn’t feel left out. By the time I hit high school, I had already given up on her goal for me. If I couldn’t be high-achieving as effortlessly as she could, I told myself at least I was prettier. Imposter syndrome and sibling rivalry won out, and I masqueraded as the pretty twin for the next twenty years.

True to 2e though, I wasn’t any good at fitting neatly under society’s labels. What the majority decided is pretty, I contradicted. I am a tomboy. I like taking things apart and getting my hands dirty. I am fitful, unaccommodating, independent, and dominating. I enjoy being in nature for extended periods of time. I despise pink for its irresponsible representation to me of societal stereotypes of all colors and shades. I don’t enjoy shopping. I lack fashion sense and don’t care much about what I wear, as long as it’s comfy. I don’t wear makeup. I rarely fix my hair, opting instead for my beloved, one and only hair accessory. Yet, like Jo March from Little Women, my hair was my one beauty. So naturally, I chopped it off for charity in one fell swoop.

Drastically changing my hairstyle gave my self-confidence the boost it needed to walk through that door and open up a new level where I could be happy being me—all of me, in all areas, at all times, and under all circumstances. The pretty twin was really great at determining what others wanted but not so good at committing. She was the one who put others first at the expense of her Self. And once I rid myself of the pretty twin, the smart twin left me, too.

Cutting my hair was not only freeing; it was symbolic. I lopped off excess layers, shed who I tried in vain to be, and leveled up toward Me. Now comfortable in my own skin and confident in my abilities, I am somehow different from who I thought I was yet simultaneously exactly the same.

When my husband’s eyes widened and he stopped eating and stared at me as I passed by that window, I knew we would have some things to work through. After all, he didn’t marry the smart twin; he married the pretty one. And I allowed it. But marriage mostly is a continual commitment to each other even after the kids bring out the awkward, scraggly, disheveled parts inside.

And I opened the door and walked through anyway.

For Further Reading:

Baum, Susan M., Joseph S. Renzulli, and Thomas Hébert. “The Prism Metaphor: A New Paradigm for Reversing Underachievement.” The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented (NRC/GT), Collaborative Research Study, CRS95310, September 1995. https://nrcgt.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/953/2015/04/crs95310.pdf.

Baum, Susan M., Robin M. Schader, and Steven V. Owen. To be Gifted & Learning Disabled: Strength-based Strategies for Helping Twice-exceptional Students with LD, ADHD, ASD, and More. Prufrock Press Incorporated, 2017.

Daniels, S., and M.M. Piechowski, eds. Living with Intensity: Understanding the Sensitivity, Excitability, and Emotional Development of Gifted Children, Adolescents, and Adults. Scottsdale: Great Potential Press, 2009.

Piechowski, M. M. “Mellow Out,” They Say. If I Only Could: Intensities and Sensitivities of the Young and Bright, 2nd ed. Unionville: Royal Fireworks Press, 2013.

Wells, Christiane. “The Primary Importance of the Inner Experience of Giftedness.” Advanced Development, 16, (2017): 95-113. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311821895_The_Primary_Importance_of_the_Inner_Experience_of_Giftedness.