Hair

 

I had my hair cut today for the first time since around a month before the pandemic took hold.  That’s 18 months ago, more or less.  At some point during this period we find ourselves in I had decided that one positive thing I could do while I wasn’t forced to interact in person with anyone on a professional basis is grow my hair long enough to donate it to a charity that makes wigs for kids who lose their hair to chemotherapy or for other medical reasons.  It was a no-effort effort on my part, and now that it’s done hopefully some small positive thing will come out of this long tunnel of negativity. 

Hair is just hair, I figured, you cut it off and it’ll grow back, maybe, right?  Still, I felt a little pang of sadness as I heard the scissors crunch through the strands.  I just had another birthday, and the thought that “it’ll grow back” is a promise of time that I’m not entirely sure I have and won’t know that I have until it has already passed. 

The hair is gone now, it is in the mail on it’s way to the charity with a little bit of money to help pay for its transformation into something that hopefully makes someone else’s time a little easier.  Well most of it went there, there were a few tufts that were too short to be included so I tossed those into the pile of mulch outside our front door that we use to try to absorb some of the rainwater that overshoots the gutter at that spot before it seeps into our basement.  Maybe it’ll aid that effort, or maybe it’ll wind up getting used by a bird for a nest.  Whatever happens to it I hope it’s useful.