Forget Me Not

Terry uses Calli’s hair throughout the text as a symbol for her journey toward self-acceptance. In “My Hair,” Calli says, “My hair is the only thing / I’ve ever liked about myself” (5). Calli’s mom cuts her hair in the early pages of the novel because Calli has been pulling her hair out, an allusion to how Calli’s mom’s solution to difficulty is to “cut it out”: Cut the hair, move towns, or break up with the current boyfriend. Calli’s mom believes that cutting Calli’s hair will keep her from pulling at it, which also shows Calli’s mom’s deep misunderstanding of Tourette syndrome. A recurring idea in the novel is that suppressing tics makes them worse, and when Calli’s mom chooses to suppress Calli’s pulling tic by cutting her hair, she’s harming Calli and hindering her journey toward self-acceptance, not helping her. 

Jinsong describes Calli’s hair as “a pot of sparkling gold” when he first sees her (11). When Calli arrives to school the next day with short hair, Jinsong is confused: “What did she do to her hair? [...] She still looks pretty. She just looks really different” (31). Jinsong appreciates Calli as her true self but struggles to stick up for her and doesn’t understand why she acts the way she does. On Calli’s last day, Jinsong notices “her short hair glowing in the sun” (283). Jinsong likes Calli for who she is, symbolized by his focus on her hair, regardless of its length. 

Calli finally stands up to her mom about her haircut and her Tourette syndrome in the poem “Sick.” She tells her mom, “I’m sick of you taking things away / my hair / my home / my friends / my life” (305). Calli telling her mom that she doesn’t want her hair to be cut is a symbol of Calli’s self-acceptance despite her mom’s lack of support. Calli has accepted who she is, specifically her Tourette syndrome, and she is asking that her mom accept her as well.