Tied In A Knot

I have had long hair for the majority of my life. In high school, it was to my waist and through college and beyond, not much shorter. When I had Little Miss, I cut it significantly, as she was a hair puller. Since then, I've been growing it out. I recently reached a milestone.



Yep, I can officially tie my hair into a knot. And it stays. It's pretty cool, I think.

I usually wear my hair curly, and it looks much shorter that way, but it's actually pretty long. Gotta love how curls shrink the hair up.



In fact, this gives you an idea of how much curls shrink up your hair:



That is ten inches of my hair. Gone. Chopped.

I donated my hair, and it's officiallly on its way to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths. I've been planning to donate my hair for awhile now, and I wanted to make sure that I had plenty to give.

Most organizations that collect donated hair make wigs for children who need them, obviously replacing hair lost from chemo being the major reason. Pantene is the only one that also makes wigs for adults. After thinking long and hard, I realized that I've been touched by cancer in adults too often lately to not try to go this way.

J's mom is a breast cancer survivor, a neighbor passed away last month of brain cancer, a friend from college passed away Thursday (unbeknownst to me that she was that close to dying when I donated, although I thought of her when making the donation) of breast/brain/liver cancer, a friend's mom passed away yesterday from breast cancer, and the list goes on.

On Wednesday, I took a deep breath and drove to my salon. I told them that I was going to donate my hair, and that they had the freedom to do whatever they want with the end cut. I don't know what my hair looks like short, so I have no real opinion. They thought it was a neat thing, and I think I may have encouraged a few others to go this route, too.

Interestingly, the woman at the post office (we have the nicest post office in the world) is a frequent donor. The first time she donated, she gave 18 inches - wow! Things I learned from her: most places will cut your hair for free if you're donating and they'll also take care of mailing it in if you donate to Locks of Love. However, Pantene appears to be the only organization that will send you a letter confirming your donation.

As for me, I'm planning to grow my hair out again and donate until my hair is more than five percent grey (when they can no longer take it). It was a really neat feeling... and I need some neat feelings these days. There hasn't been nearly enough rainbows and sunshine in my life with the recent passings and other issues (a friend's required hysterecomy due to health issues, another friend's third miscarriage since September). This -- such a great feeling!

So what do you think? This is the cut they gave me from the salon (the girl didn't know how to style curly hair, so she blew it straight).





Fortunately, I've also discovered that my hair is still curly -- or at least somewhat so. I'm still getting used to the new cut, especially when I go to shampoo or brush it and I remember my old length just isn't there.



Have you ever donated your hair? Or thought about it? Just tell me I didn't make a huge mistake with this haircut!