I couldn't be Rapunzel
I finally got a haircut after going through three lockdowns. I got my haircut only once in that time, I believe, at the hands of my wonderful girlfriend. Today, I shocked and surprised her when my long flowing, tangly locks were shawn off.
The thing is, with restrictions and lockdowns and all these other precautions in a way making me thrive, there was also the excuse to keep out of situations. Most of them social, sometimes stuff as simple as getting my hair cut. I guess I could liken it to the life of Rapunzel, but also...
I couldn't be Rapunzel.
There's just something about Rapunzel that doesn't sit right. Depending on the version you're looking at, all Rapunzel knows is her tower. Socially isolated with minimal family contact. Just a window to the outside world and no way to reach it.
Perfect. I dunno if Rapunzel is a different type of person than me, probably, she's generally depicted as a cartoon these days, but for the most part the Rapunzel life doesn't seem that bad.
I mean, she was kept in a tower against her own will, so there is a problem tracking that sorta change.
Lockdown, at least at the start, was comperable to Act 1 of Rapunzel in my eyes. That's the world now, away from the world, letting my hair grow long. Obviously, you're right, eventually anyone would wanna get out of that situation. Except in my reality we have a government so tempermental and unsure and backtrack-y you would have thought it was me trying to decide if I should send a staff member on my shift on their break or not. Just a state of uncertainty of escaping the four walls we're currently locked in.
As time progressed, lockdown, for me, became less about fun quizzes over Zoom and more about the new monotony of a daily structure that had everything other than living. I certainly became less and less productive and more and more distracted, but the one constant was my hair.
Like Rapunzel, my hair grew longer and longer with no sign of stopping. I did not once attempt to cut it myself and while lockdowns slowed down, once restrictions got softer, once places started to open up...I still didn't make that leap to cut my hair.
Rapunzel's hair may or may not be magic, depending, but I didn't see her in any rush to get rid of her hair either. Sure, it soon became a means for her to escape, but as a dude who last had their hair long in university I have to say...
...How the fuck did she not go insane with that amount of hair.
True, loads of people have long hair. My girlfriend, the saint she is, has the best long hair I've ever seen. Coming back to work after the "final" lockdown showed me just how many people got Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire hair. Myself, however, just drew the line eventually.
It gets everywhere. Hair. It's irritating. The country is hitting crazy heatwaves like it tends to do for a week every year, and I have no idea how people manage it. I bake like a potato under this head of hair and the unkempt beard I tend to rock. Add a mask, and jesus, I look like Jesus wearing a mask. Just at a more accurately presented shade of darker skin.
With that small window I can see the world out of, I can't help but reflect on how the hell Rapunzel can live with that much hair and also live in a tower with just that small window she can see out of.
Maintainance must be insane. Her hair is in literal feet. It goes beyond her feet, it goes straight down the side of a tower if she so wished. How the hell does she do it. Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline.
Or, you know, being locked down means she couldn't get it cut.
Where do you even start washing that hair. No way she has more than a small washbasin. Washing hair little by little. It must take at least a day to get through it all. Like painting the Golden Gate Bridge, by the time you go from one side to another you need to start all over again.
I just couldn't handle that. I could barely handle the hair I had until recently. I didn't think I'd ever need headbands, or to properly dry my hair, or to share the responsibility of blocking the shower plughole.
Rapunzel is a trooper. She didn't choose to be part of the life she had to live, but she made it her own and made her own decisions. I, needing to go into lockdown because it's been shit trying to contain a virus, took too long to decide that it's safe and okay to go outside on my own accord to get a hair cut, Now that I have, I can breathe again, I can move my head without being tickled, I can shower and not pull out a wig for a kitten.
At last I see the light. And it's like the fog has lifted.