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You are here: Home / Mom Life / Second Thoughts & Hair As Identity

Second Thoughts & Hair As Identity

February 11, 2014 by Deanna Tousignant Leave a Comment

So, tomorrow is the big day. The salon appointment is booked. At 2:00pm I’ll be cutting and donating my hair. At the beginning of this I said I was going to cut off 1 inch for every $100 raised, and that my goal was to raise $2500 and cut off 25 inches. Today my mom stopped by and helped me take this photo of my hair.

I wanted to show how much 10 inches off would be. When I measured my hair on my own I came up with 25 inches off to end up at shoulder-ish length. I was obviously WAY off. When I saw the photo I realized I could cut off an entire yardstick worth of hair and still have shoulder length hair. So despite the fact that I’ve only raised 10 inches worth of donations, I’ve decided to go whole hog and cut off over three feet of hair.


I am going to donate 36 inches of hair to the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program. Through this program Pantene takes donated hair and turn it into free wigs for cancer patients. I think it’s an amazing program, a truly beautiful way for Pantene as a company to give back.

Any second thoughts? Oh hell yes! I have a bad case of the jitters. I am feeling quite nervous, like a three year old before their first haircut. I have had extremely long hair for the majority of my adult life. The idea of chopping it off feels awkward, scary. My hair is part of my identity. I’m that weird girl with the long hair who never wears pants. Chop off my hair? That’s crazy talk. The idea of walking around with shoulder length hair that doesn’t coat my back sounds like walking around naked.

...I keep it long because... Marge Piercy quote on long hair.

But then all of those feelings of trepidation are exactly WHY I want to do this. It’s true, our hair IS part of our identity. And the idea of loosing your hair, loosing that piece of yourself, when you are already fighting against cancer? That must be so intensely disheartening. I feel like I can hand over some hope, some understanding by giving up my hair to help a cancer patient receive a wig.

It’s just hair. It will grow back. But how often do you have the chance to give hope to someone when they need it the most?

That’s what I keep reminding myself. That’s my mantra as I head off to my big hair cut tomorrow.

You can donate directly to the Canadian Cancer Society on my fundraising page HERE.

 

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Filed Under: Mom Life Tagged With: #HAIRity, #PonyItUp, Beautiful Lengths, Canadian Cancer Society, long hair, Pantene

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