What I Did For Locks Of Love
I realized that not enough people knew about the Locks Of Love hair donation program, so this is just a little page dedicated to their group, and my donation %)
Since I was old enough to decide for myself what I wanted where my hair was concerned, I've been growing it long. It must have been around 2nd grade when I decided I didn't want my bangs anymore and let them start growing out. In 4th grade I got a big haircut, where I evened out my bangs with the rest of my hair.Why did I stay with the long hair? I am not sure, maybe part of it was that I have always just been lazy, why cut my hair? It looked fine. I never spent a lot of time caring about my outward appearance.
After a while it just became part of me, people would refer to me as "the girl with the really long hair" ... and it just became something I lived with. In my senior year of high school I took the nickname "PrincessLeia2" partially because of the long hair trait I shared with my hero Leia ;)I remember once, when cutting hair became very popular (mid 90's) with young girls, only two of us in our whole class kept our hair long, I thought about it a couple times, but always declined, and said I'd always want long hair. I said I wanted to be one of those wise-looking older women with old white hair, and was actually looking forward to it!
Well, I graduated from high school, moved away from home, got my first job... all with my long hair. And it was unique, not too many people these days have long hair. And best of all, it didn't take too much work to maintain it, no frequent hair salon visits, as it was so straight that almost anyone with a steady hand could trim it.
After I moved to Philadelphia and turned 21, I guess I realized I needed to do some growing up. Sure I had supported myself, I had held a job for over a year, and I could mostly take care of myself, it was really time to get out of that college-age mindset and try to sort of "settle down." I guess part of that was improving my self image... so I decided to cut off a few inches of hair. Just enough so I'd look better. That's when a friend of mine told me about "Locks Of Love""You can donate your hair to kids with diseases who can't grow their own hair, they make wigs out of it."
"Really? How much do I need to donate?"
"Something like 6 inches, you can check out their website, it tells you stuff, I think you can get your haircut free if you donate too!"
I talked to Myk about it, and he agreed that it was a good idea, why waste just 6 inches, when I could cut off 4 more and let it go to a good cause?
So on March 18th, 2003 after being upset most of the morning about this whole thing, a friend of mine took me to get my hair cut at a really nice hair salon in the area that supported the Locks Of Love program. I sat down to get my hair cut, and the stylist showed me how much 10 inches was, and I realized that I was more than willing to part with more than that. So how much did I get cut off? Final total was 18 inches!And surprisingly... I really liked it. It felt weird, and the next time I hopped on a scale I learned that the hair I was now missing weighed about 3 pounds. It was a huge change, it had been 13 years since that 4th grade hair cut. Brushing my hair was so much different, washing my hair was so much different... it's been pretty major.
Want to donate your hair to the Locks Of Love program? Simply go to LocksOfLove.org and find a participating salon in your area! As I found out, 10 inches isn't much if you have it to give, it'll always grow back, and it'll greatly benefit someone in need. And don't worry, they take all sorts of kinds of hair, straight, curly, frizzy... Besides, it's neat to be able to tell people you donated hair (especially for people like myself who tend to have trouble giving blood), it makes you feel really good about yourself.
