Let me first say that I don't particularly care much for longer hair. The more I have to take care of it, the higher my irritation level. However, the act of getting my hair cut is something that combines a bunch of the things I dislike and makes me pay for them. Talking to strangers, being touched by strangers, staring at myself in a mirror, and the choice between inane conversation or awkward silence. So I end up in a place where I am bothered by the increasing length of my hair until that bother overcomes my natural aversion to getting it cut.
But that's not the funny place haircuts have had.
Haircuts have occasionally aligned with a significant life change over the years. The first time I really remember this is when I lost my first adult job. I had taken a day off to get a tire changed and get my haircut when I got a call from my boss. Our office had been shut down by the parent company, and we were all immediately unemployed. I was quite unhappy with this news, and then made it worse by getting a haircut.
Second time was the day my first wife moved out. We were separated and I was living in an apartment close to work, suffice it to say that things were not well between us. I had planned a visit with the kids and......a haircut before heading home. I showed up at our house, and it was empty. She had packed up most of our stuff and disappeared with the kids. I sat in an empty room for about an hour not sure what to do. I did not get a haircut that day, it was postponed until about 10 days later when I found out where my kids were.
This most recent time was almost exactly a year ago, on a Friday evening in August 2017. I went out dinner with some work colleagues who in town from Kentucky. At dinner, I joked that my hair was really bothering me and Saturday I would be getting a haircut. While my hair was relatively short at the time, it WAS August in Arizona and any hair was miserable in the heat. On the way home I called my wife, as usual. She told me that during the day she had moved out of our house and lied to the kids about where she was going.
This one hurt. The reasons why and how that developed is a story for another time. But this event cascaded on me. I had to leave my house and move into an apartment. My youngest daughter moved in with her mom. I accepted a job offer in Texas I honestly would not have had I still been married. I had to get rid of my dogs. And I ended up in Texas with my family not in Texas.
And during all of that, I did not cut my hair.
So it got long. My bangs could be pulled to my chin. The back was somewhere on or below my shoulders. And I didn't want to get a haircut. Honestly, it felt like getting a haircut was somehow accepting or approving of the spiral I was on.
So haircuts. Boo.
A couple of days ago I went and did my hair cut. This probably isn't very interesting to anybody but me - but getting it done ended up a catharsis for some of the negativity I've been holding on to. Not the way I feel about being here, or not being with my kids. But certainly of the unfairness of how this started. And I didn't expect that. Somehow in my brain, the haircut had gotten all tied up with my ex-wife leaving, and the collapse of my stability that went with it.
Here's a picture of some of my cut hair. Maybe I can find a way forward after all. Only problem is - I'm out of hair to cut.
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