A Hair-Raising Challenge

OK, that title is corny, but "hair" has been on my mind lately. I have a true love/hate relationship with my hair. I think I learned to hate it as a child because ... well, I think my mom hated it and therefore doing anything with my hair became a torturous experience. I was born with quite a bit of hair, and by the time I was a toddler I had a full head of thick, red curls. I have to say, when I look at our old family photos and slides, I was a really adorable baby. Fat cheeks, huge blue eyes (although now they're green -- go figure), and that mop of red curls.

Fast forward in the family album a few years and you see the oldest son, Steve. Then Dave. Then Jim. Then the fourth son. Oh no, wait -- that's me. My curls are gone and there I sit, looking like one of my brothers. When I asked my mom why she cut all my hair off (yes, she cut our hair and -- sorry, mom -- it was horrible), she replied that she just couldn't take it anymore. We didn't have nifty Kids L'Oreal products with built-in tangle-free goop, so every time I took a bath or had my hair washed, I would scream. And just forget trying to run a comb through the rat's nest of my hair -- I would scream even louder. My mom told me that so often my grandmother, who lived downstairs at the time, would come running up, thinking I was hurt -- "What are you doing to that girl?!" The funny thing (or not so funny) is that I can still remember crying as I got my hair washed at the kitchen sink.

So I spent most of my years with very short hair, even into high school. But by that time it was by choice. I played sports and was very active, so short hair worked for me. Plus it was the 80's and I lived in NJ, so I found a way to spike up that short hair in some totally rad 'do. But when I got to college, I decided to grow it out. It was the season of grunge and a resurgence of sorts of all things hippie, so not only did I grow out my red locks (which had lost its curl out of protest, I suppose, of years of shortness) but I ditched any and all make-up too. It felt good.

I graduated college in 1994, with my long, healthy, wavy bright red hair cascading down my back, a striking picture set against the black robe of my graduation. Now fast forward again to the present. I still look like I'm in college, 13 years later. While my hair isn't quite as long and my glasses are different, I still have that no-real-style hair that usually ends up in a pony tail because I don't know what to do with it, or it's too heavy and I get headaches if it's down for too long. B-O-R-I-N-G. But here's the deal: I'm a big chicken. While some women have been disappointed in love, I have been disappointed with salon experiences. On those few occasions where I have gathered up the courage to clip out a picture from a magazine, I was bound to be disappointed, and I ended up growing it all out, back to my Style Circa 1994. Here's thing: my hair is not curly or straight, but it's also not consistently wavy. It tends toward frizziness. It's so thick that my one pony tail is as thick as the pony tail of a friend of mine tripled up. It's so course that an individual strand of hair looks like a copper wire, and it's as strong as dental floss. A particular "style" doesn't usually work on me. Plus, I like looking younger than my age. The average guess is usually 10 years less, and I have to admit that I like being mistaken for a 20-something. If my hair goes short, the wonderfully erroneous age-guesses will go with it.

And yet every year I say to myself, "I'm sick of my hair. I want to do something new." I usually don't, or I'll get it cut a little shorter than usual or something very benign and safe. Two years ago I did take a drastic step, but I was motivated: my mom started chemo for her first round of breast cancer and lost all of her hair. In my love for her, my grief for her loss, and wanting to stand with her, I decided to donate my red ropes to Locks of Love, to help other cancer patients who have lost their hair from treatments. The stylist cut off 12 inches, but I still walked away with a shoulder-length, safe "bob" style which quickly grew out. That event occurred on Christmas Eve day, and that evening I made my debut in church performing a hand bell solo, accompanied by the organ ("O Holy Night"). When I walked in, a friend of ours blurted out, "Oh my gosh! You look like a teenager!" I have to say that made me feel pretty good -- a mother of one, and pregnant with my second child.

So here I am again, with my hair rather long again and hot as fire in this awful summer heat. On Monday, my mom is going to start chemotherapy again, and while I have heard stories that some people don't lose their hair the second time around, I'm not getting my hopes up. I'm starting to feel that pull inside of me again, that if my mom is going to lose her hair, then I am going to lose mine. Oh, I won't go all Britney Spears on everyone, but I do believe that it will come off. I don't think I have enough to donate again -- the minimum is 10 inches in a pony tail, and I might just have that ... which would mean it would be super, super short. But who knows -- if I can donate after all, even if I end up looking like my brothers again, maybe I'll go for it. But one way or another, I believe I am determined that it will be drastic -- just as my mom will experience something drastic on her head as well. So stay tuned ...