“Today’s the day.
After 1 year and 11 months, I’m cutting all of my hair off.
I assumed things would feel different, but it wasn’t until today that I have actually felt different.
My anxiety surrounding it has grown. I have questioned if today should be the day. I’ve debated if I should keep going a couple of months longer in order to have even just 1 more inch to donate or selfishly, more time to enjoy having long hair.
Through all of these feelings, my excitement has grown too. I haven’t told anyone that today was the day. As people have asked me over the summer when I’ll be cutting it, I’ve told them ‘Yea, I’ll do it sometime this fall,’ but it wasn’t until 3 weeks ago that I actually made the decision and booked the appointment to cut it.”
Back on October 9, 2018, I got a hair cut. There was no purpose to that cut, just a regular day and a normal hair cut. As 2018 grew to a close, I set a goal for 2019 to grow my hair out a bit. I had no intentions at that point to grow it out a ton; I just wanted a “mini flow” to see what it would be like. As 2019 progressed, I decided more and more that I wanted to have a purpose for growing out my hair rather than just doing it for the heck of it.
That’s when I made the decision to keep growing it out until it was long enough to donate.
If you’ve known me for a while, you know I was involved in Dance Marathon in college and working to improve the lives of kiddos being treated for life threatening illnesses is something I still care a heck of a lot about to this day. Outside of donating money to support these kiddos, though, I saw donating my hair as another avenue to help out kiddos like the ones I know through Dance Marathon.
A few months ago, I made the decision to donate through the organization, Children with Hair Loss, a non-profit that provides human hair replacements at no cost to children and young adults facing medically-related hair loss. Whether the child’s hair is lost due to cancer treatments, Alopecia, Trichotillomania, burns, etc., they can apply for hair through this organization.
Things I love about this organization:
The donation is specifically for children
Recipients don’t have to pay for their hair
The minimum to donate was only 8 inches
In total, I was able to donate 9.5 inches to Children with Hair Loss!
A question I’ve gotten in the past few days since I cut it is, “Will I do it again?” and I’ll be honest, if you would’ve asked me that question a month ago I probably would have told you absolutely not. But as my donation day approached, and now that I’ve had some time to process what donating hair actually means, I’m realizing that it is such a small gesture for any of us to forgo several haircuts over a 2 year period in order to have an impact on a child who had no control over the circumstances that led to their hair loss.
So, will I do it again?
Yes - someday.