“I’m thinking about cutting my hair. What do you think?” I’d followed him after a minute when he walked through the living, down the hallway, and into the bathroom. We don’t barge in on each other anymore. When we were first married it was standard behavior to just be in and out of the bathroom no matter what the other person was doing. In our first apartment the photo college from his dorm room leaned against the wall.

I wanted to incorporate his friends and special memories, plus our bathroom was huge. There was room to put a large bulletin board full of pictures. There was that one picture of him and Laura from their Minnesota missions trip. She was the one girl he ever told me that he loved, but not in that way. We stayed up all night in his car by the swing-set, listening to Lifehouse and others until sunrise. She married one of his college friends.

We had a fight one time in Hoyleton that ended the free-for-all bathroom practice, or at least made me question, or think twice, or wonder how we’d gone for so long without me truly knowing how he felt. You can’t always judge the hasty things said in anger, but for some reason those are the words that will stick with you. “Why don’t you treat me like a queen!?”, I had said, or something like it. I can’t even repeat what it was he said.

It’s too embarrassing, at least that is how I felt when he said it. This whole time I thought it had meant we were close. His family did the weirdest things. They all had their own personal time in the bathroom. One after the other, 30 minutes at a time. With us we were in and out, sharing a sink, a hairbrush, towels, asking if someone could bring us some toilet paper. This is how I was fine with things. It wasn’t weird to me.

“Well I wouldn’t do anything impulsive”, he said to me from the other side of the door. “Why would you cut it?”, he asked. I’m bending in the hallway looking into the mirror, running my fingers through the neglected ends. I like my hair my long, but I’m 42 now. I’ve had it this way for probably 15 years, never coloring it, never styling it. “I feel like maybe I need a new look.” Maybe having it shorter would make me look healthier.

Like I was trying and caring. The girls at the shelter change their hair all the time. The women and girls do not have very much hair. They purchase extensions and then weave them in with braids or other methods. It often breaks and is hard to manage. They are very skilled at beautifying and very hair conscious. I watched a girl and mother fight over what kind of style the girl could have or not have. The girl wasn’t happy.

“If you like my hair long, I think you need to tell me more”, I said, still looking in the mirror, but standing up now. I’d put the mirror on the lower half of the wall so it would be at eye level for the boys passing by when they would walk into their room. They are taller than it now but it still hangs on the wall there. We’re still talking through the door. “Do you mean like right now, or just in general?” It isn’t quite a formula but it could be.

“I mean like in general”, I said, satisfied. And that was the end and there was no more about it. I went back into the living room to continue with whatever it was I was doing. I think he came back out and then said something about liking it long. He did. I still will go into the bathroom at times, but I knock first, mostly. He doesn’t care when I’m in there, but I care when he is. Back at camp there were no doors, just the woods and the lake.