How i became a hairdresser.

A breeze comes though the gap from that damn window, which never seems to close properly and as the elements enter into our quiet existence I roll over to see the woman that I have shared the last five years with and who I no longer recognize. It’s hasn’t always been like this there was a time where she was my world and I spent my life orbiting around her. But somewhere along the way I got lost, spun out of control deep in space miles from home. Its not that I don’t love her I guess I’m just comfortable and quite frankly bored of the whole situation. I find myself looking at and pursuing other women, which in my profession is like taking money from a cripple.

Three years ago I joined the noble ranks of the hairdressing fraternity, out of a fear that I become another miserable schoolteacher. I was twenty-three coming to the enviable climax of a useless fine arts degree with my only options to either wipe my ass with it or to enter a career of teaching stupid teenagers and on top of that teaching them art, come on. I remember the art classes at school the only reason students even enrolled was because it impossible to fail and it always felt like an extended recess.

Now looking back it wasn’t even my decision, I remember being incredibly stoned watching one of stupid reality television shows; you know the ones where a bunch flamboyant homosexuals storm into your house and cut the sleeves of you favorite shirt and insist that you shave your beard with some sort of miracle balm. Well anyway it got to the point, when they drag the unsuspecting man to get his fabulous new hairstyle and what do I say, “ I bet you I could cut hair, I have a fine arts degree” like the arrogant fuck I am.  Two days later I come home from another stimulating day at university and when I say university I probably meant say the pub. Stumbling through the door I am greeted by that upturned smile she has plastered across her face, then she goes ahead to explain that I have job interview at hair salon. The cheeky bitch applied for the job behind my back and three years later I’m still there.

I lay there watching the breeze gently blowing each strand of her hair into a different contortion of its original design. She slowly opens her eyes and lifts her head to reveal the drool from the night before and we wonder why love is not forever. I get up and clumsily make movements in two different ways towards the toilet. I sit there enjoying my early morning purge, as she wails from the other room about the fantastical dream she had and them precedes to enter the bathroom to remove a blood stain tampon that has been fermenting over the night, which she casually place into the bin. That’s when you know you’re in a relationship, when personal space is extends to the grotesque.

 The rest of the morning goes as usual, we put on our disguises and enter the world as the success young couple that the society expects of us. Give each other a quick peck on the cheek and then make our way to the opposite sides of town to participate in the joys of being an adult, work. Why didn’t anyone tell me that life was going to be like this if I were told about this natural progression I would have done something about it. I don’t know, I would have prolonged my studies, done as many courses that my government subsidy would have provided and become an academic sleeping with all young female students so that I would give them good grades.

Well it could be worse instead of being surrounded by beautiful young girls and frisky old women. I could have been another corporate stooge surrounded by cubicles and water coolers, besides I am really good at what I do. Some years ago I discovered the secret to being a good hairdresser its not how good you are at doing hair, its your ability flirt and charm the pants of people. Its like going to a bar everyday to chat up women except in this case the women come to you and pay you for the service. You might be giving them a great hairstyle, but you are really servicing their egos and showing them what its like to be a real woman, not the meals on wheels that their husbands make them out to be. 

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Everyday is a constant fight, as the sun beckons me to wake I find myself twisting and turning to find any amount of shadow to shroud me from its light. I would give my soul for just ten minutes alone to live another life that exists in my mind, but unable to fight I admit defeat to embrace a life of mediocrity and shame. How did it get to this point where I choose to sleep over living a life that I used to love, which I used to hold on to with all my might. But as every year passes another candle goes out with the promise of a better life and someone new to love.

I am always looking for that sublime moment of either joy or misery, as the middle ground feels like nothing to me, when I’m not in love I feel like a blank slate, a boat in the ocean miles from land. But as love takes hold I start to feel alive, as if an artist is working that stone into something greater than its parts. The only problem in living like this is that I’m still I’m love with all women of my past. Every stale relationship, incidental encounter and passionate affair still bares a scare on my heart, a wound which will never heal and as every broken heart piles on top of the last I’m starting to find it harder to breath.

As I am getting older and wiser I am beginning to understand why I live this life. There is something in my past that I choose to forget, some unbearable pain, a wound so deep, and an untouchable love that I have spent my life trying to obtain.