I Let My Hair Grow

Pre-hair cut.  About two years of hair growth.

Yesterday, after about 22 months, I cut my hair.  It is my first "haircut" since I retired.  I had fun dealing with the various aggravations of long hair as it kept increasing its length.  I don't wear my hair down much.  Mostly, I put it up with a hair band.  

It is like having short hair to begin with.  Everything is pulled back nicely and out of the way of your face and ears.  Then there's the first time while you are wearing it down that it gets in your mouth as you take a bite of something.  So I keep it pulled back unless I'm sleeping.  

Showering with really long hair is a new experience for me.  I had to move it out of the way to bathe my neck and upper back.  Shampooing it required a helluva lot more work.

But, at some point after 18 months or so, at least in my case, pulling it back doesn't always work anymore.  It starts flopping over my shoulder, not so bothersome at first.  

Last week, I was cleaning tons of leaves out of our ditch with a pitch fork and wheelbarrow.  The leaves were piled up against my mailbox post from the torrent of water from one of several hard rains we have gotten recently.  I scooped up dozens of forks of leaves and transported multiple wheelbarrows up to mulch our Savannah Holly.  Every time I bent over or twisted or turned my damn hair attacked me.

Over the shoulder the lower blond wad sometimes felt like a monkey on my back.  This was it.  The moment I knew.  When I let it grow, I did not know exactly how long I was going to let it go.  I had no fixed length in my mind.  But the blond monkey on my back syndrome was a clear indicator.

So I let Jennifer cut 4 inches off my hair.  She did a nice job.  Now it is back to where it was about last Thanksgiving and not a nuisance at all.  Washing it is still no plus but it seems manageable without that extra mass of blond hair.  

Everyone was surprised how wavy and blond my hair is on the end.  Mostly it is salt and pepper and straight, obviously.  So, basically, we cut off the wild blond in me, I guess.  I wonder if it will come back that way as it grows long again. 

It feels rebellious to wear my hair like this.  I'm pretty sure, before I cut it, my hair was longer than anyone else's in my family, female or not.  Some said they liked it.  Most said nothing, which in my family means they don't like it but won't bring it up.  

Now I'm all cleaned up for Easter.  My beard is shorter too.  After this, I might let them both grow again for awhile.  Who knows?  I never intended to grow my hair that long to begin with.  It just happened.