Saturday was the big day. Not that I’d been planning it for a long time or anything, but I realized my patience with my long hair was finally getting nearer and nearer its breaking point, so it wasn’t too surprising to me when I woke up Saturday morning and knew enough was enough. Denisa helped me bundle the hair together for donating it, and then we buzzed my head clean.
It’s been over two years that I spent growing it out, so this has been a long time coming. I have a few thoughts, naturally:
- Long hair is very annoying. It probably would be less annoying if I’d grown up with it or had ever experienced it before, but for me, it was always getting in the way. I’d wake up in the middle of the night with my face covered in hair. It got in my eyes all the time. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t get frustrated with it in some way. It takes forever to dry, and I found myself suddenly having to alter my schedule to make sure I had time to wash my hair and get it dry in time. For a guy who’s always had short hair that can be dried in under a minute tops, this was a big change.
- The longer my hair got, the less the person looking back at me in the mirror looked like the person I think of as me. This might sound odd to you, and I guess it is, but it felt like I was permanently stuck in a costume. I felt self conscious about it, particularly when I was out and about interacting with people I hadn’t met before. I felt this continual need to explain to people why I was doing what I was doing.
- I have as much hair as I thought I did. So much hair. And it’s very nice hair. I was happy with how it looked, at least. Somewhat curly, and not very gray at all. It was very healthy hair, I guess? I don’t know much about hair, but there were no split ends at all when I cut it, and I’m told that’s a good thing.
- I debated somewhat how I wanted to cut my hair when I was done. A big part of me wanted to buzz everything off, just to give as much hair as I could, but there was another part of me that really didn’t want to deal with explaining to people why my hair (or lack thereof) looked the way it did for the next while. Couldn’t I just have a normal haircut? In the end, I buzzed it because kids who end up losing their hair don’t have the option to pick a hairstyle. It felt wrong to me to shy away from doing something that went against the grain of my goal, even in spirit. So it’s all gone.
- I continue to be surprised at how comfortable people feel telling men their opinion about the hair on their head, whether facial hair or normal hair. I can’t imagine going up to a woman and telling her she ought to cut her hair, or that I don’t like her hairstyle, or that she should change it in any way. It would feel like me going up to someone and commenting on their weight, honestly. But I guess there’s something cultural that makes people feel like they have a right to have a say in what a guy looks like when it comes to hair. I’ve had people tell me how much they dislike my beard over the years, and the same held true for my hair. I tried to take it all with a smile, because I don’t think there was any ill-intent behind any of it. But it certainly didn’t help me feel at ease over these last two years. As a general suggestion to people, having dealt with it now myself in a few ways, my advice would be to just let people look the way they want to look. Having long hair or a beard isn’t the same thing as having something stuck in my teeth. Believe me: I’m well aware of the length of both, and I’m not all that interested in taking a public poll over what to do with them.
- Would I do it again? I’m very not sure. I made the goal in complete ignorance about what it would be like. How long it would take. How hard it would be to handle the hair. Now that I know all that? The odds are low that I’ll do it again, to be honest. Having long hair is a very not-Bryce thing to do. I’m all about making things as easy as possible for my day to day upkeep, and long hair goes against that at pretty much every level. The only thing that kept me going was reminding myself why I was doing it.
I’m sending the hair to Children with Hair Loss. They require it to be at least 8 inches. I ended up getting between 9-11 total. Less than my original goal of a foot, but still long enough for someone to be able to use it. I have no idea who will get it, but that’s all beside the point. This organization doesn’t charge anything for the wigs they give to people, and that was very important to me.