Anticipation sat in my stomach all day. The little butterflies flapping away. Every time I looked in the mirror I thought, “It’s all going to be gone.” School flew by and the next thing I knew, I was loaded up in the car, three friends there for moral support. This was going to be hard. If I went through with my plans the last five years of work and effort would be gone. “Not totally gone”, I had to remind myself, “Just on somebody else’s head.”
As we pulled up to our location, my breath caught in my throat. Was I really going to do this? Apparently so. Walking in was hard, signing in was hard, and waiting was harder. When a woman called my name I stood up rather shakily and shook her extended hand. Her name tag read Lynn. I explained to her what I wanted and as she smiled at me I realized that this woman in the next hour or so would decide my fate.
She sat me in the swiveling chair and I cringed at the objects surround me. Self-inflicted torture devices I told myself. “Why am I doing this?” I kept replaying the video I’d seen online, of what would happen and where it would go. I kept thinking of the lives it would help. My heart still sank as she tied the band. “How much?” she asked.” “Eight inches.” Eight, eight, eight! It reverberated in my mind. I started to shake. I didn’t how I was going to do this.
She affixed everything just right, then looked at me in the mirror and asked, “Ready?” I closed my eyes and nodded.
Snip, Snip, Snip…
30 seconds later I looked in the mirror, tears streaming down my face, at the cut ponytail of my beautiful red hair, my one beauty. The jagged edges of my sheared hair leapt out at me and I was aghast. I didn’t know how I had done it.
Lynn was now evening out the bottoms of my hair. My three supporters told me it was fine, and inside I knew it was. It was time for change and that unevenly cut ponytail represented so much.
It represented everything I had gone through in five years: the boyfriends, heartbreaks, band escapades, family trips, and my loving of life. But it also represented my fears and misgivings. I was so terrified of cutting it off, even though I knew that it would help somebody else as it was going to be shipped to Pantene’s Beautiful Lengths, a program that gives real human hair wigs to women who have lost their hair. Cutting my beautiful locks was a big step for me, but sometimes we have to change, even when it hurts. The Christmas season and the New Year are all about change and giving. I took a chance and I don’t look half bad.
A lot of people disagreed with me about cutting my hair. But I think I needed it. I’ve realized that I used my long hair to hide behind and that’s not the kind of person I want to be. You may not agree but somebody has to say it, and sometimes, that somebody has to be me.
