Back

Some years back, I bought a trimmer to start cutting my own hair. Pick the length shield, buzz buzz, leave just a bit a little longer at the front so that there's *something*, done. Most of my life, I'd checked my hair in any mirror I passed. From a Buddhist angle, I wanted to get rid of the attachment, no longer care what my hair looked like--it wasn't a necessary part of me being happy.

It worked decently well. I saved a lot of money for years. Maintaining it was a breeze--barely any shampoo, quick tousle when I get out of the shower to be dry, no styling product, no brush, no comb, never hat-head, never wind-blown, never had to think about it except monthly to trim again. This has worked for about ten years.

For a couple of weeks, it's been past time to do it. And I'd been thinking of going shorter this time, lose the little *something* up front, simplify. I'd had a number 4 shield on the trimmer, couldn't find the number 3 in the drawer, so dove in with the number 2.

Oh. My.

I don't think I'd realized how much my hair was thinning. Not so much at the sides, but now the top is mostly scalp. Combined with my grey, I look like I just aged fifteen years in half an hour. My look just went from "shortish, deliberately unkempt style" to "rapidly balding and trying to hold onto the last scraps".

Additionally, I just went from "released from thinking about his hair, doesn't care how it looks" to "gonna be thinking about his hair pretty much constantly for at least a few weeks".

I am not happy.