Change is Scary

Change is scary.

 If you are anything like me, making big decisions comes with much lament. First, the plummeting feeling in my stomach, quickly accompanied by the drowning feeling of self-doubt. Is this the right decision? How do you know? Why don’t you know what’s best for you? Now there are some decisions in life that are truly monumental, such as purchasing a home or deciding whether to get married, have kids, and then there are some decisions that just feel truly monumental. For me, this non-monumental-monumental decision came in the form of a haircut.

Pre-Haircut Blues

Throughout my childhood, I felt an overwhelming compulsion to cut my hair. When life felt mundane and I needed a break from the monotony, I would take off an inch or two.  By my freshman year of college I was sporting a short blunt bob with blunt straight bangs. I don’t know what happened, but one day something just snapped. I remember looking in the mirror and deciding that I was going to grow out my hair and donate it to an organization that provides wigs for women suffering from cancer. Maybe I was inspired by my boyfriend’s donation a couple years back, or maybe the break from monotony that I needed was some commitment for a change.

Fast-forward to 2015.

 I had officially been growing my hair for eight years and I was starting to feel absolutely insane. My hair was officially past my buttocks and I was officially fed up. You can imagine how difficult life with hair that long can be. What proved to be even more difficult however was making that hard decision to change and get it cut. I grappled with cutting it for two years before I mustered up the courage to chop it off.

 (Hey, it’s not like procrastination is a necessarily bad thing in this scenario; it simply means more hair to give!)

Braids: All day, Every day

It was the realization that my hair was either in a bun on the top of my head or a very long braid at my side every day that made me decide to take the next step. When had I stopped enjoying my hair? My hair had always been a source of joy and expression for me, and it was time to take that back. I had let my fear of change and comfort in contentedness keep me from taking charge of my life. It was then that I hit the ground running.

Growing out your hair for years and years is a huge commitment and investment of time. Like all wise investments, you need to do your research first.

You as the donor are responsible for providing a certain length and quality of hair to be considered a viable donation. The Locks of Love organization got a lot of guff for announcing in 2007 that they have to throw away 80% of donated hair because donors did not follow the guidelines for donation. You wouldn’t bring canned soup to a mitten drive would you? It’s a nice thought, but not helpful for the task at hand.

Generally, organizations require hair donations of ten inches or more, less than 5% grey, and untreated by dyes chemicals and bleaches.

Another reason to do your research before deciding to donate your hair is because not all hair donation organizations are created equally.

When you tell people you are going to do donate your hair the first thing people ask is “Are you going to donate it to Locks of Love?” While Locks of Love is a fine organization, I am glad that I did my research. I grew out my hair with the expressed interest of bringing joy to a woman suffering from cancer. After a thorough reading of their website riddled with vague terminology such as “long-term medical hair loss”, I found that the overwhelming majority of their wigs go to children suffering from alopecia. Many children with cancer are denied wigs from this organization because their hair is going to grow back at some point. 

That was it for me. Having family and loved ones who had lost their battle to cancer, it was wigs for cancer or bust. Locks of Love was out. That is when I found the absolutely amazing Pantene Beautiful Lengths Program. 

Partnered with the American Cancer Society, Pantene’s Beautiful Lengths wigs are created specifically for women with cancer. To date, the program has donated 42,000 real-hair wigs to the ACS Wig Bank since its creation in 2006. Another great aspect of this program is that it allows donations of only 8 inches (although I donated 12).

When the day finally came and I sat in that chair to cut it off I thought it would be different. I thought I would feel something when that razor sliced off eight years of my life, or confetti would fall from the ceiling and everyone would get up from their cuts and high-five me for my being a big girl, but that’s not how change works. It’s hard, it’s scary, it’s inevitable, and it’s yours to bear. No one else knows how monumental that moment was for me, and that makes it all the more special. But the craziest thing about change is how quickly it goes from scary to being the past. A split second. Now it’s the future. You can’t glue that hair back on girl, move the hell on. Embrace the change.

It brings me immense joy to know that there is a woman out there who will feel confident and beautiful with my hair on her head. Next time I face a big scary decision, I will remember the emotional (and physical) lightness that I felt that day. 

Change is scary, but it’s also temporary.