Gone tomorrow...
Except for the occasional interludes when I buckled under peer pressure, I've had long tresses for all of my adult life. My hairstyle bears a marked resemblance to the one I wore in sixth grade, at age eleven. Not because it's fashionable (I'm pretty sure it's not) but because I like it. It's shiny, healthy, rarely blow-dried hair, and when I woke up this morning, I knew it all had to come off. Today was just a waiting game until the time for me to take out the scissors and the electric trimmers and shear myself like a sheep.
The furnace and AC guys finished installing our new system a little after 5 pm. When the lead technician started up the AC, it was 108 F degrees outside and 96 F inside the house. Hot! He explained that the new ductwork in the attic was so hot that the air wouldn't be getting into the rooms for a while. First the AC had to cool down the ductwork, and only then would the cold air start lowering the temperature in the house.
Kathy suggested we go out to dinner while we let the house cool down. I took my hair out of the ponytail and tried to comb it to make it look presentable. As I combed it, my hair just kept coming out; it was like I couldn't get free of it. Just brushing my hand along the side of my head would leave me with a tangle of hair around my wrist. It was maddening! I was nervous about going out in public because I felt like there was hair all over my shirt, no matter how much I tried to pick it off. We went anyway and had a nice dinner.
When we got back home, it was still hot in the house. I was sweaty and tired, but I knew it was time to cut my hair off. The last thing I wanted to do was to wake up with clumps of hair on my pillow.
I laid out towels in my bathroom for easy cleanup, then began by whacking my hair off into a chin-length, 1920s style bob. 10-12 inch strands of hair fell all over the lilac terrycloth. Kathy stood in the doorway to the bathroom and watched me, saying that she had never seen someone cut their own hair. I have to admit, there wasn’t a lot of finesse to the process. With hair as long as mine was, just cutting it to a bob meant I was cutting off quite a bit of hair. I didn't prepare my hair to donate to Locks of Love as I had originally planned, as so much of my hair was already coming out. I didn't want to cheat some poor kid with a scrawny wig.
When I finished the first round of cutting, I stared at myself in the mirror. I looked about twelve years old with my hair like that! I didn't know I could look so young. I cut it some more, chopping layers in a rather crazy, toddler-like fashion. (If toddlers were hairstylists—scary thought, eh?) I still looked young. Next, I fired up the clippers and cut my hair down to one inch, and then one half-inch.
Uh-oh. No more youth! It turns out that the clippers cut away all my colored hair (brunette with purple over it) and exposed my roots. When did I get that much gray hair? Oh, no! I can't say that it is flattering on me. The only comforting thought I have is that it won't be hanging out on my head for very long.
All in all, it was rather anticlimactic. I expected that I would find the process emotional. I had a lot invested in my long, shiny locks. But, in the end, it wasn't. I'm just glad to be past the whole hair loss issue, ready to move onto other things.
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