Author's Note: Read, please review. It makes the heart grow fonder, and helps brighten rainy days.

...

I’m Jewish.

I don’t have the nose and my Japanese best friend speaks more Yiddish than I do. But, it's still there. You see, I have curly hair.

And despite how much I bitch and moan about my “Jew-fro,” it’s not crazy curly (except for when the humidity hits off the charts). It’s wavy, and has volume, but to be perfectly honest, it’s kinda pretty. It suits my face, I guess. But the thing is, as soon as the wind starts blowing, it grows. Just– grows. Outwards, I mean, not down. So I straighten it. I don’t even tell most people about my secret love affair with my flat-iron, ‘cause I love it when people compliment my long, silky locks.

Blow a couple hundred bucks on hair equipment, and you want to reap the rewards.

But there’s a funny thing going on. This year, I’ve gone through more emotional ups-and-downs and topsy-turvy-twists than I thought humanly possible in a lifetime. My friends (most of them) have changed with the wind– I’ve gone through the freaks, geeks, populars, wannabes, and all the rest.

And I’ll admit it– I’m human. I like that when I chill with the “popular kids” people... I dunno, look differently at me. That sounds stupid, but it’s sort of like a drug– once you have a taste, you go nuts. But in the past month I’ve started spending less and less energy on who I hang with, resorting to my old “fall-back” friends. You know, the ones who’ll always be there despite the mood swings and personality shifts. The ones you know better than you know yourself, and who say the absolutely most hurtful things to you because they know what cuts deepest. The ones who you know will love you to death, even if it means their compliments are always tainted by love.

The ones who know my straight hair is as fake as the person I sometimes– okay, often– pretend to be.

Because lately my face has looked better surrounded by curly hair, and the two hours it takes to straighten doesn’t always seem worth the effort. Not that it winds up stopping me– I just stare longer in the mirror as I get out of the shower. Funny, huh? And I’m planning on getting it permanently straightened.

Does that make me a bad person? Does that mean that I’ve chosen this shallow life of parties and little sleep over a few close friends? Can I have the friends and the straight hair?

Maybe my hair really is just my hair. Maybe it’s not. I have no idea why I have to find the symbolism in everything.

Does that make me a bad person?