The long and the short of it

Well this post was originally supposed to solely be about my new hair-do but I feel compelled to address an issue that to me is slightly over dramatic.

Let's start with the bigger issue: I am getting divorced. There ya have it, it is confirmed... I rival Kim Kardashian for shortest marriage.

In all seriousness, we really have decided to get divorced. The drama part of it comes in behind closed doors and from the mouths of busy bodies. Ya see, Facebook is the advent of the devil, and although I am guilty of being intrigued by all of my friends' posts and pictures, I also don't take it too seriously. OR if I see something on there that concerns me, I contact the person directly, send them a message, and speak my mind.

Yeah, well not everyone is like me, and although some people swear each day that they are getting rid of facebook, the sad truth is that it keeps us sucked in. And with all of the notifications that pop up on our news feeds and inboxes it is hard to miss the comings and goings of our friends!

When I got married, I changed my last name to Roger's last name. But what some of you may not know about me is that Johnson is not my maiden name. Johnson belongs to my ex husband Carl, and after changing it, I decided to keep my married name when we got divorced in 2005. It just seemed easier that way. But when I married Roger, there was no way I was keeping my ex husband's last name, or changing it to my maiden name... in good faith, I changed it to his. Plus our kids have that last name so that would make things a lot easier for them in school!

Little did I know, facebook is the end-all be-all of name changes. I changed to when we got married, I changed it when we separated, only to find out that that caused a stir among family members who were not tuned in to the intimate workings of my relationship. Roger posted some crazy comment a few months ago on FB to which I replied, and then I resigned myself to not post any details or defaming remarks about our relationship because quite frankly, it is no one's business but a) our own or b) anyone who I PERSONALLY choose to share it with. But again, the mouths were whispering and asking friends of friends who then asked me.

For goodness sakes people! If you have a question, go straight to the horse's mouth! I purposely put every last name I have ever had on my facebook to simply point out that it gets tongues wagging and sure enough, it did. Some people had enough tact to come right out and ask me, and I respect that. At least they didn't say "oh here we go again, she changed her mind for the 100000x". They straight up said "Did something change?". Nope, nothing changed. We are still getting divorced.

And to go with my new found singledom (which in all honesty, I do not tie to my surgery AT ALL...just tying it in to the blog here...) I have decided that I need to cut off the excess and start fresh. So... I chopped off my hair!

I may or may not have a slight obsession with a website called Pinterest. And every day when I peruse the site I find more and more cool things. One of which is this picture of Katie Holmes. She looks might sassy with her hair, and I fell in love with this haircut. So... I brought it to my hairstylist today! Let me preface this with the fact that my hair generally does not cooperate with anything I do other than straighten it, so I have had the same hairstyle in varying lengths for YEARS. This Katie Holmes do is similar, but slightly messy for my usual taste... but I LOVE IT! I feel like the "new me" deserves something spunky and sassy to celebrate my loss.

I am 99.99% sure that my hairstylist thought I was a looney-tune when I asked her to photograph my hair chopped off, but she was game, so I closed my eyes, said a prayer, and opened them to this: EEKS!!!! That's my HAIR! (gross dead hair, from the looks of it!)

Isn't it weird how we identify so much with our hair... which is what, weird follicles that we try to remove from like 98% of the rest of our bodies?? Anyway, I truly didn't freak out as I described, I felt oddly liberated... like I had cut off the bad vibes that I had been dealing with for the past 3 months or so.

Although I can't say I look just like Katie Holmes, I can say that I feel great. So without further ado...... Here are the before and after shots!

Yup... that's me on the right.... the NEW ME! Spunky, Sassy, and ready to face a new chapter of my life.

Oh and in case you are wondering "Why did she get married to begin with?!" Call it love. Call it a want for my children to have a nuclear family. Call it stupidity. Call it whatever you like. I still maintain that it was truly one of the happiest days of my life. And it saddens me that we couldn't work things out in the end. But better to realize it now than have our children grow up in a miserable household.

As things stand now, I am sad, but I am also hopeful that the next few years bring a sense of independence, newfound strength, and that sassy, spunky woman that I think got lost in the shuffle.