Long Hair

Greg took this photo at the Kansas Underground Salt Museum the other day. My point of showing it here has nothing to do with the museum, but with the hair.

I'm thinking about getting a few inches cut off my hair and donating it to one of those places that makes wigs for cancer patients. The Pantene one only requires 8 inches. I need a serious trim and would probably cut about four inches off anyway, so I'm thinking about cutting eight and donating it. I have before cut six inches off at once and - honest to goodness - no one even noticed. But I did. I keep brushing when I'm out of hair. It's weird.

My hair comes down past my waist, about half way between my waist and my legs when it's down my back. Eight inches will bring it up above my waist, which would be the shortest it has been in many years.

I started letting it grow, and only getting it trimmed, more than 20 years ago. For reasons I cannot explain, I'm very emotionally attached to my hair. When you see those people on TV getting lots of hair chopped off and they're crying and you think they're nuts because they're going to look so "updated" when it's cut. Well, I'd be one of those people. I know that doesn't really make any sense, but it's true.

Hair for me is part of my identity - a serious part. Is that weird? I think it is. Other women change their hairstyle, length and color casually but I'm stuck in this place where I just don't know that I would feel "myself" with something else.

Now that I'm getting gray here and there I'm thinking about coloring and it just seems overwhelming to me. I will never be able to sit still in a chair for the hours it takes while someone does it for me so I'll have to figure out how to do it myself. Plus, I don't want striped hair. I just want my hair to look like my hair, without the stripes hairdressers put in it. I guess that's the "in" thing, but I just want my hair to look like it does now. I don't want it to be striped. I don't want it to be blonde. I just want it to be not gray.

But, I've digressed...

My hair is a big part of my identity, but I do very little to it. Wash, condition, comb when wet, brush when dry, and that's it. No color, no perms, no straighteners, no blow dryers, no curling irons, no hot rollers, no other devices - some of which I didn't even know existed until educated by friends.

So, there's this big soup of "stuff" connected with hair for me. I feel compelled to whack some of it off and donate it. At the same time I'm horrified at the thought of someone chopping on it that severely. I guess time will tell. What it will really probably boil down to is if the urge strikes me one day when I can actually get someone to do it right then.

I did a quick and dirty simulation of what it might look like:



Does it seem ridiculous to you that I would be agonizing over such a thing? I know both photos probably just read  - "long hair" - but for me it seems like a huge difference. We'll see if I get the guts.

Humans are weird, and I'm no exception...