This is all my fault

This Is All My Fault

It’s always been my fault. At least, that’s what I told myself.

The first betrayal came at fifteen, when I nervously sidled into the local salon with waist-length hair and a dream. Farrah Fawcett hair. In the 1970’s everyone knew what that meant—big, bouncy, flicked fringe, the kind of lucious locks that made men swoon and women envious. I had visions of myself walking down the street tossing my hair in the breeze like a human palomino pony galloping across the prairie on my way to new adventures no longer a child but a woman with a bright and successful future ahead of me.

Three hours later, I emerged with five inches removed from the back, a frizzy perm only at the front, and the rest hanging like wet string. “Thank you,” I said to the mirror, already vowing never to return. Everyone told me it looked “nice.” It didn’t. We all knew it.

Five years passed before I dared enter another salon. This time I wanted corkscrew curls—hippy hair, fashionable in the late 70s. I left with a shoulder-length afro frizz so crisp it could have doubled as kindling. The stylist assured me it would “drop.” It didn’t. By the time it loosened, it was fried and full of split ends. Clearly, I hadn’t explained myself properly. My fault.

The 80s promised redemption. Big hair, mullets, Bon Jovi on the posters. I chose a trendy city salon. They showed me photos. The stylist herself had the very cut I wanted. Hope surged. Then came the clippers. The sides of my head disappeared in a buzz of betrayal. For eight weeks, I sported a semi-Mohican no amount of hairspray could disguise. Again, I hadn’t communicated. My fault.

I resigned myself to straight, limp curtains of brown hair. No bounce, no body, no chance of a slow-motion shampoo-ad moment. Fashion moved on, but my hair stubbornly refused to join in.

Then—salvation? A new salon opened in town. A London-trained owner with celebrity clients. Glorious reviews. I booked a consultation. I was clear this time: minimal trim, some body, easy to care for. She nodded with confidence. A demi-wave, she said.

The day arrived. I was nervous but hopeful. The trim was more than I’d bargained for, but the scalp massage was heavenly, the blow-dry divine. When I saw myself in the mirror, I nearly wept. Shiny, bouncy, luxurious waves. For the first time in my life, my reflection matched my vision. I was transformed. I could ride horses on beaches, hair streaming like a landlocked mermaid. I could waft into rooms, shimmering like the women in shampoo adverts. I was finally going to be the strong successful woman that I had dreamed of. I was in a word ecstatic!

The next day, my hair started breaking off at the roots. By evening, half of it lay in the sink. My scalp peeked through in random patches. I looked like Weird Barbie—singed, uneven, an experiment gone wrong.

Did I march back and demand answers? Of course not. Clearly, it was my fault.

A year passed before I dared think about it again. I began to wonder how other women achieved hair nirvana. Maybe it wasn’t me. Maybe I’d just been spectacularly unlucky. Or maybe it was time to try something different.

The salons had failed me. Science had failed me. But I had one last card to play.

The dark arts.

I’d always dabbled—a soupçon of chanting here, a sprinkling of spells there. Nothing major. But now I began to wonder: could the ancient ways succeed where modern hairdressing had not? Could I conjure the perfect coiffure with a little Wiccan intervention?

So like all good white witches I lit 6 black candles in a circle, laid strands of my broken hair on the altar, and whispered words older than scissors and combs. The air thickened, heavy with the scent of herbs and smoke. The flames arced toward me, contorting in the dim light as though listening. When I closed my eyes and spoke the final incantation, I felt something stir at the crown of my head—a tingling sensation, as if a hundred unseen fingers ran through my hair, braiding light into the strands and weaving love and hope through my tresses.

When I opened my eyes, the mirror did not show me alone. A figure stood behind me—woman, goddess, shadow—her hair a cascade of endless waves, black as ravens, bright as fire. She leaned close, and in her whisper I heard both promise and warning:

“Beauty is not given. It is taken. It is bound.”

The candles guttered out. The mirror went dark. My hair lay still against my shoulders, as dull and straight as ever.

When I reached up, I felt something new beneath the strands—coiled and waiting, alive, as if the spell had only just begun to take root. Each lock shifted with its own intention, no longer passive but awake, like serpents testing the air. I thought of Medusa, cursed yet crowned, her power born not from conformity but from defiance. My hair was no longer decoration; it was rebellion, each strand a reminder that I could strike fear or awe, that I could command space.

And yet, threaded through the coils was Athena herself, the goddess of wisdom and war, whispering strategy into the wildness. Medusa gave me the force; Athena gave me the purpose. Together they showed me that what grows from my head is not just hair, but a living symbol of my will, my struggle, my survival.

They say a woman’s hair is her crowning glory, but my vision revealed a deeper truth: glory is not inherited, it is summoned. It rises like serpents uncoiling, it speaks in tongues only the brave can understand. True glory comes from daring to begin, from the courage to stand up when silence is expected, to stand out when conformity is demanded, and to speak out when others would rather you turn to stone.

This is not just a story about hair—it is a story about the power of a woman. It traces my journey from a nervous and painful adolescence to a place of strength and self-discovery. It is about holding on to hope in the face of adversity, rising again after life’s defeats, and carrying forward the wisdom of the past to shape a brighter future. It’s about finally learning the truth whispered by all the women who have gone before you it’s not your fault.