I had always praised myself for not being like the other moms around me. I didn’t drive a minivan, I wasn’t interested in helping out with the PTA, I didn’t wear mom jeans, I didn’t take my kids to playdates with other kids in the neighborhood. In my mind, I was still a young mom, even though I’m 36. I enjoy going with the flow with my kids, structured socially accepted ideas and activities are definitely not the way that I parent.
So, the other day, I decided that I need to get my hair cut. I had been growing it out since my days in the USAF (about 8 years now). Almost the entire time I was in the USAF and most of my life prior to discharging from the military, my hair had been short. But in the 8 years since I had been a civilian again, I really let my hair grow. Now by growing, I mean I put it up in a ponytail or bun and left it the hell alone. I didn’t bother it as long as it didn’t bother me. We, my hair and I, sort of existed this way for the past 5 years.
After having the baby in June, my hair started to really fallout from the depleting pregnancy hormones. I am talking, falling out by the handfuls. It was quite disturbing. I could have created 5 wigs with the amount of hair I lost in these 4 months post partum. It was actually starting to get quite annoying having to pick hair off of my clothes on a daily basis and vacuum every 2 days in fear that I would be attacked by a tumbleweed of fallen hair. Gross!
Anyway, so I decided after my run on Monday that I would go and get my hair trimmed. I hadn’t had time to wash it every day, let alone get it trimmed in the past 4 months so now was as good of time as ever. I checked in online at Great Clips and headed up to the nearest location, which is only like 5 minutes by car. In that time I was trying to decide what I wanted to do with my hair. I knew I needed a little change but I still wanted to be able to pull my hair up in a ponytail otherwise I might just get frustrated with it enough that I would shave ALL my hair off. Remember, my hair and I sort of had this unspoken rule that as long as it didn’t bother me (and by falling in my face every 2 minutes that is bothering me enough to go out and out Sinead O’Connor on my head) I wouldn’t mess with it too much. My days of radical transformation was WAY in the past.
Ok, back to the story, I had decided that I wanted to probably go as short as I could but still be able to pull it in a ponytail—a little past my shoulders. As I sat in the chair, I started thinking about a Facebook post I had recently seen about a girl who had shaved and donated her hair to Locks of Love, the public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to ill children. Man, I thought, was that chick brave. I bet if I had a cute little body with a cute little uber-feminine face I could pull that off. I couldn’t even pull off if my hair was in a ponytail on the wrong place of my head.
As I was talking to the stylist about what I wanted, we decided that the shortest I could go and still pull off a ponytail would be right below my shoulders with all the layers one length. I was down with that.
Right before she began, I casually mentioned that I had thought about donating my hair to Locks of Love or the like before but I have dyed my hair and it was in bad shape on the ends. She informed me that they take dyed hair now and that my hair was not really in that bad of shape, just dried out on the ends. So I asked her how short that would leave my hair. She went to the next station and grabbed a ruler and measured. 10 inches, which is the required minimum needed to donate hair, would leave my hair right at chin level. I thought about it, I swear, for a whole .0001 seconds and decided, why the hell not? I mean I was going to be cutting damn near 2/3 of that 10 inches off anyway if I cut it to below my shoulders and it would just go in the trash—why not cut a little more and give it to a good cause.
So the stylist partitioned off my hair into 2 ponytails in the back and cut away—and then it was done. In her hands she held the 2 ponytails worth of hair that took me 8 years to grow. It felt good to know that this hair would be going to Locks of Love for “financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 21 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis”.
But there was only one problem… there were still long sections of hair in the front that were also viable for donation. I asked her why she didn’t cut those pieces as well. She explained that if she did, it would leave my hair a lot shorter than I wanted. I told her to go ahead and cut the remaining strands for donation. I mean I had come this far, right? No use in wasting more hair that could be made into a wig. It’s just hair, after all.
So then there were four ponytails of my donated hair. The stylist then went to work on cleaning up the chopped remaining hair on my head. What I was left with was a “mom-do” like no other—one length, to my chin, and with waves in awkward spots.
It was interesting the reactions I got from my children and my husband, none of which knew I was planning on cutting my hair off. Hell, I didn’t know I was going to be cutting my hair off until I sat in the chair. But, I know it will grow back and if having a funky looking “mom-do” for a few weeks (until this hair decides what it wants to do) helps a child feel better about themselves, I will happily wear this “mom-do” with pride.
**If you would like more information about donating your hair to create quality hair prosthetics, check out these two links below.
Locks of Love
Locks for Love/Beautiful Lengths
