We Interrupt the Memes...

...for a spontaneous post on my life.
And a momentous day it was: I got my hair cut.
For normal people, this is not a big deal. But I have been growing my hair since before J was born.
Four years ago, shortly before I got pregnant, the stylist I'd been seeing since college, and the only guy who didn't screw up my curly hair, moved to Florida. Tragic. And while many of his clients JET DOWN TO SEE HIM (I am not kidding), that is not in the cards (or the budget) for me.
So I started seeing someone else, more local, when I was pregnant with R and then when he was little. But I never really felt at home in the salon--too P*rrotHe@dy for me. (Though I hear they now serve margaritas with a pedicure--this could be persuasive.) But I felt like I needed to find somewhere local since I wasn't commuting to the city every day anyway, and I was really in some kind of fear about most salons in my area. There is a real "look" to hair in this county, and it is a look I fear rather than covet. It is perhaps an unrealistic fear, as most people my age seem to not have it, but I am truly afraid of this look and want very much to avoid it.
Anyway. That stylist left that salon, and I had a bit of a falling out with them anyway over a gift certificate, so I was on my own again.
Around that same time, we had two relatives and a friend who were treated for cancer and lost their hair. Add to that the pregnancy-accelerated hair growth, and I was inspired to stop cutting it and wait until I had enough to donate. Then came the development that until recently, J had no security blanket but instead used my hair, and you have the recipe for a really long time without a cut. (J now has not one but two security blankets, Binket and Binky, AND the gigantic W*nnie the P**h that he adores and sleeps with every night.) So, as an insightful friend at Mothers and More pointed out, somewhere along the line it became my security blanket.
But. I was really getting tired of how long it took to wash my hair. And needing to condition the ends. And how raggedy the ends were anyway. And that I had to sleep in a ponytail to not wake myself up by rolling on my own hair. And I could go on, but it was really time. But I never found the right person or salon. I tried a few times to schedule...and something always happened. The sitter cancelled. I realized I had something more time critical to do (like mail taxes). One of the boys got sick.
So, I ended up at a Mothers and More meeting asking for stylist suggestions, and got five great suggestions. I called them all and drove by several to check them out.
Then, in the end, it came down to Who Had Hours on Wednesday. I checked them all and my friend A's was the only one with hours tonight. It doesn't hurt that she is less than 2 miles from my house--or that she is by far the cheapest. But it was time, and we were having dinner tonight at a fabulous restaurant that is about to close, and so I gritted my teeth and took the plunge.
And...I love it. I love her. I love how it feels, how it looks, how she listened and thought and didn't use much product and wouldn't let me cut off too much anyway so the little boys wouldn't cry when they saw me. I love how T looks at me with the haircut.
The sound of the scissors slicing was a little jarring. Cutting off the last of my hair that my mother saw and touched was hard. Cutting off the hair that my baby boy clutched in his tiny fist as he tried to make sense of the new world of air and light and hunger was hard. Cutting the hair that used to tickle the cheek of my baby and make him giggle was hard. But knowing that someone who needs hair will have it helped. And getting used to this cut? I think that will be easy.