Hair goes!

Yesterday I woke up with anxiety. After two years of growing my hair out, I had a 5pm appointment to chop it all off.

I haven't had short hair since a very unfortunate haircut in fourth grade. (That's 25 years ago, for those of you who are working through the math.) My hair hasn't been shorter than shoulder-length in more than two decades and I haven't had so much as a trim in two years.

Before...

So why chop it?

The answer is simple: Some people need the hair more than I do.

Still, it would be hard parting with a piece of myself. I'd grown attached to that hair! (Pardon my puns. I didn't get much sleep last night, and I've had 2 mimosas and 2 cups of coffee... Moving on...)

My mid-morning thoughts were a loop of:

It will be hard to watch all that hair go.
I'll look funny for months until it grows out.
I'm going to have triangle-hair that looks like Marge Simpson's sisters, or worse, I'll look like Kojak.*
Maybe I should postpone?

Image source

*If you're too young to understand this reference, see note (above) about being in 4th grade 25 years ago.

Then, during my lunch break, I logged in to Facebook in hopes of seeing a baby announcement from a good friend of mine.

Instead I saw tragedy.
Unspeakable horror in Connecticut.
I cried, as so many people did.

By comparison, my fears of looking like Telly Savalas were utterly trivial. Families were grieving.

By going through with the chop, a child somewhere, suffering the side effects of chemo, would be two snips and one step closer to getting a wig.

I made the cut (with the help of a lovely stylist, Camy, at London W1 in Pensacola).

... and after.

And today, after a run and with all the special styling products washed away, I do feel a bit Simpson-character like... but somehow that no longer seems significant.