Love of Locks

How many people have a love/hate relationship with their hair? When I was growing up, my mother never let me grow my hair, so my impression is that I spent my childhood looking like a dork. I was sometimes mistaken for a boy. Still, as an adult I’ve gone from long to boy-short and back again many times.

My daughter’s hair has always been her crowning glory. People go crazy for it. Long, spiral curls people swear they’d kill for. The picture was taken after we straightened out as much of the curl as we could, so she could show her friends how long it really was – down to her waist.

So she floored me when she told me of her plans to cut it off. She didn’t want to be a slave to it – the long hours of detangling and styling. She worried about hanging on to it for so long she’d be too afraid to ever part with it.

She’d been scheming for some time. She planned to grow it long enough to donate, and still have a little left over for herself. Then homework schedules and water polo practice started, and plans turned to urgency. She needed a change, and she needed it RIGHT NOW.

We looked up Locks of Love. She was willing to part with the full ten inches required for a donation. In fact, she wouldn’t have it any other way. All that work not to have enough for a donation didn’t seem like an option.

In salon number one, a surly stylist balked at cutting ten inches. We walked out. At home I listened to more rounds of agonizing about whether this was a good idea. We flipped through the hairstyling magazines a zillion more times.

Salon number two was more reassuring. I watched for what must have been a full minute as the stylist hacked through that thick ponytail. I could sense daughter’s relief when the ponytail finally came off – no turning back now.

She’s crazy about her new above the shoulder look. While looking up the information for donating, I realized I had a ponytail I could donate, too. Some time ago, in one of my long-to-short whims, I promised a stylist I wouldn’t freak out if she cut it all off. I tossed the ponytail in a cedar chest because I didn’t think it was long enough to donate, and forgot all about it. I might never have bothered to find out, but it turns out it meets the requirements. So thanks to my girl, we ended up with two ponytails to mail away. Only hers is so thick, it ought to count for three all by itself.