How I learned to stop worrying and love the cowlick

The title is a lie — I will never love my cowlick. It was just too good of a title to pass up.

So I've got this cowlick. My mom says it's hereditary and everyone in my family has one, but guess what? She lies. Nobody in the family has one quite like mine.

For those of you who might not know what a cowlick is, let me explain. Or better still, let my handy-dandy Google skills explain: "A cowlick is simply a shock of hair which looks as if the big, wet tongue of a cow has licked it. It grows in a different direction from the rest of the hair around it, so that it might look as thought it is sticking up or out. The term dates from the late 16th century, when R. Haydocke used it in his translation of Lomazzo: "The lockes or plaine feajes if haire called cow-lickes, are made turning vpwards." 

That's clear as mud, right? 

Apparently a cowlick occurs when hair "streams" form a spiral pattern. And, apparently, (this was new knowledge) most cowlicks swirl in a clockwise direction. 

My Google definitions, therefore, have taught me that not only do I spend each day walking around looking like a cow licked my head, but I also do it while sporting a cowlick THAT GOES THE WRONG DIRECTION. Ugh. 

See, the problem with my cowlick isn't that it exists. It's the location. And as any realtor will tell you, it's all about location, location, location. 

Most people think of cowlicks as being like this:

As my ever-so-helpful and oh-so-professional arrows point out, those cowlicks all appear to be at the back of the head, which would naturally lead you to ask, "So, what's the big deal?" A cowlick at the back of the head would not be a big deal, and are, in fact, quite common. For a girl, the sheer weight of her hair ought to weigh down and hide the cowlick, right? So I shouldn't whine.

Wrong. 

Because my cowlick isn't at the back of my head. My cowlick is more like this:

 

Right smack at the front of my face. And going counterclockwise. And therefore you can't possibly understand what sort of trials my cowlick has put me through... 

The problems with having a cowlick front and center began to emerge early in my youth. A short study of my childhood pictures will quickly inform you that I had the strangest hairstyles around, courtesy of my cowlick. I didn't know how to do hair anyway, but having to wrestle with a cowlick magnified the problem. And being the only girl in school unable to carry off any of the popular hair looks through the years was quite wearing on my self-esteem. 

Remember this popular 1990s poofy-bang look? 

 

Impossible. 

Braids? 

Not happening. Middle parts were out of the question, and braids (and pigtails) look ridiculous when off-center. 

Swoopy bangs?

Yeah right.

Blunt bangs?

 

Keep dreaming. 

The best I could manage was a mix of blunt bangs with an inadvertent poof in the middle (circa. 4th grade) or an ill-conceived attempt at swoopy bangs as a college freshman. It has been a never-ending struggle. 

Up until I turned 12, I allowed my mom to cut my hair. She cut all of our hair — it was the totally normal thing for her to do. The only problems were (a) she didn't really know how to cut hair for a girl (she's brilliant at cutting hair for boys — having five sons will do that for a mother — but for a girl? Not so much...) and (b) no matter how much you cut, bangs with a cowlick will NEVER END UP STRAIGHT. 

Still, the day before I was due to graduate from primary and move into young women's, my mom gave it everything she had. She WAS going to cut my bangs straight, even if it killed her. 

And the result? 

It was something like this:

Obviously I never let my mom cut my hair again. 

Years after this traumatic experience, I've had to admit that even going to professional hairstylists isn't the answer when it comes to dealing with my epic cowlick. They don't know how to cut it either, mainly because they always think they do. Our conversations go like this: 

Jackie: I've got this cowlick right here. It's impossible to work with.

Hairstylist: Oh yeah, I see it. 

Jackie: You have to cut it less over here and a little more over here, and then you have to make sure it's this specific length. Any longer and it starts to swoop here.

Hairstylist: Oh yeah, I see it. 

Jackie: No, seriously.

Hairstylist: Oh yeah. 

Jackie: I don't think you're really listening.

Hairstylist: Oh yeah. 

Jackie: Okay... 

Luckily, my cowlick grows at a Harry Potter-type pace. The hairstylist can cut it in some bizarre and terrible way (I'm talking to you, girl who tried to feather it) and their fruitless efforts will be covered up within a day or two. Now I let them do whatever they want and then fix it myself afterward. It's a good system. 

There are times when I start to feel cocky, like I have some measure of control over my cowlick. I have, for instance, learned the proper way to cut it — shorter on the left, long in the middle, longest on the right. It's a science, really. But the last time I started to get cocky I attempted, once again, to grow swoopy bangs. Unfortunately, the left side began to stick straight out while the right side just poked my eyes. Surrendering to the inevitable, my bangs quickly met my scissors. 

Enduring 24 years of failure has helped me learn to stop worrying... But I will never love the cowlick. 

I'll just whine about it instead.