So about my bangs….I have fine, flyaway hair. It looks a mess twenty minutes after styling. I used to spend half an hour fighting to conquer it every morning, only to look in the mirror later and decide I should have just stayed in bed longer. My waves turn into frizz if it rains or if I even pick up a brush, despite putting two “smoothing products” in my hair each morning. I can almost hear those expensive little bottles mocking me from across the city.

Added to the fine frizz is my high, uneven forehead. During one of the few times when I opted to grow my bangs out, a ten-year-old asked me if I was going bald! Her grandmother defended my honor, stating that a high forehead is a sign of beauty. Yeah, in ancient China maybe.

My plight shifts from annoying to ridiculous as I attempt to hide my unruly hairline under this unruly frizz. Not only do my bangs not stay how I style them, they do not stay where I style them. A pair of cowlicks launch themselves over my temples, with the right-side arching into a cockeyed swirl that lands pointing inward and forward over my eyebrow. These cowlicks respond only temporarily to being redirected. And Heaven forbid I go out into the slightest breeze! I try not to hate on those lucky mortals whose hair drops right back into place. If someone even whistles in my direction, my bangs flip to a place where even a bad toupee would not go.

I have learned that timing is key for my styling solutions. If I pick up the hairdryer when my bangs are too-wet or too-dry, I risk straightening them to limpness, inviting the temptation to re-curl and land back where I started. I typically get puzzled looks when I tell stylists that my hair looks different every day; that is, until they find they cannot get my bangs to do anything civilized either.

And so I obsess about my bangs. I fixate. I keep a mirror at work, and may have a reputation as the vainest lady in the place. No, I’m just paranoid that I may be replaying some version of a bad school picture day. I keep hoping my forehead will shrink or my cowlicks will soften, but to no avail. I know my fate. I understand this is a First World problem. Still, on especially bad hair days I feel justified in wanting to call out sick from work on the grounds of emotional distress. I will try not to bring up my bangs too often during the course of our acquaintance, but if you catch me looking in the mirror one too many times, please be understanding. I’m trying not be medicated over something as silly as hair.