I'm trying to grow out my bangs at the moment, something I have been doing off and on for the last year or so. They always get to the same point -- just long enough to get into my eyes, but not yet long enough to smoothly brush to the side -- before I give up and cut them short again in frustrated irritation. I realized recently that every time this happens, I hear my mom's voice in my ear saying, "Honey, you look like a shaggy dog!" which is what she would say whenever my bangs would get too long when I was a kid. This may be why it is next to impossible for me to get past this awkward bangs stage.

My mom was a stickler for short bangs. Once they grew within an inch of my eyebrows, she'd say, "It's time," and hand my dad the ultra-sharp scissors used only for cutting my and my sister's bangs. "You too," she'd say to my sister, even if her bangs weren't in need of a trim. My mom was a great believer in maximizing bang-cutting time. The stool would be placed in the middle of the kitchen, the old towel would go around our shoulders, the wet comb would plaster the hair to our foreheads. Snip-snip. "Your father can cut so straight. You're lucky, girls." We didn't feel lucky, the stray hairs tickling our faces and making us wrinkle our noses. And no matter how short he cut them the first time -- "Just a little bit shorter." Then he wouldn't have to cut them again so soon, she reasoned. A battle of wills ensued. "But they're going to get shorter when they dry! Mom!" My dad's scissors would wait, poised, for the outcome. After a particularly bad butchering once, I won the argument for life. I knew it as it was happening: they were way too short; my forehead felt bare as a peeled peach. As soon as the scissors stopped moving, I tore off the towel and ran to the bathroom, clambering onto the counter to peer at my bangs. "Eeee!" I screamed. "I look like a Chinese boy!" Then I started sobbing, still staring at myself in the mirror, unable to believe the injustice. My aunt, who happened to be visiting, stood in the doorway. "Let me see," she said. "They can't be that ba... oh." My mom peeked from behind her, looking repentant. "I'm sorry, honey." This did not help. But from then on, whenever I said, "No shorter!" my dad put the scissors down.

It should be noted that I had some serious bangs as a little girl: stick-straight, thick, beginning at approximately the middle of my head. I used to stare at girls who had dreamily thin hair all one length and fantasize about growing out my bangs. Once, in third grade, my mom agreed to let me try. When they got to the awkward in-my-eyes-but-too-short-to-pin-back stage, she came up with innovative solutions like gathering them into a tiny ponytail right in the middle of my forehead. "Are you sure it looks okay?" I asked her. "It looks great," she assured me. "Just like Cyndi Lauper." Satisfied, I bopped my way to school, lunch box in hand, looking completely ridiculous, I'm quite sure.

So here I am now, at the awkward bangs stage once again. If I can just make it through another week or two, I know I'll be out of the danger zone. I just wish my mom was here to assure me I look like Cyndi Lauper and not a shaggy dog.