A few days ago a long lost friend showed up on my doorstep.
His name is Shawn.
I know that most of you are thinking that Shawn cannot be a long lost friend because he’s my husband and normally you’d be right, but not this time.
After months of appointment after appointment my bed no longer bounces me awake like the Northridge quake did when I was growing up. He is sleeping better due to his CPAP machine. This means he has more energy and is not quite as crabby as he used to be.
On top of the lack of energy he was having a hard time taking care of his hair. I know this seems silly but it’s hard to brush your hair when you can barely lift your arms. We talked about getting his hair cut over and over again always deciding that we didn’t really want to cut it. We’d always say, “just a few more inches.”
Well those “few more inches” added up. In September his ponytail measured 12”, we thought about cutting it and sending it in to Locks of Love but we didn’t want to cut his hair short. Growing it out is always a huge pain in the rear. We decided to grow it out two more inches so that he could donate 12” and still have his hair past the growing out point.
After another 2 ½ months of growth he couldn’t take it anymore. He had to get a haircut. A trip to Marinello’s was planned, and the length discussion was started again.
Normally we go to the beauty school in the evenings, but a three hour haircut doesn’t work well with an 8pm bedtime. The earliest we can go is 10am, we showed up about 10:30. The place was packed. I forgot that all the local q-tips go to the beauty school for their weekly cut’n’curl.
Everyone was amazed and shocked that we were cutting off all that length. Even the q-tips said it was a shame to cut off all that beautiful hair. The only that made it okay was that he was donating it. All 16 inches of it.
Yes, I said 16 inches. His hair grew four inches in 2 ½ months.
When they placed him in the chair a crowd gathered. No one could believe that he was going to cut it all off. They all stood and watched as Ceara made the first cut. As soon as the length was gone everyone returned to their own stations but stopped by occasionally to check on the progress.
I decided that shorter was better, but explained that he has two horrible cowlicks, one in the front where his hair naturally parts and one at the crown, kinda like Alfalfa. This makes cutting his hair a challenge for an experienced hair stylist let alone a student. I even threw in that he really wants to keep as much length as he can. There’s nothing like a he wants it short but not too short, but he doesn’t want it too long either, to confuse a student more.
Hair was parted, clips were placed, the cutting began, and hair fell.
I’m pretty happy with the way the cut turned out. At first he looked like Robert Redford in The Sting, but once we tousled it a little bit he looked more like Blake Shelton.
I’m getting used to the shorter hair, but after three years of nothing but trims, it feels like there’s a stranger in bed with me.
*title By Shawn
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