My hair was getting shorter and shorter with every cut. Then Coronaplague came along and it started getting longer and longer. I didn’t know when I’d want to get it cut. Then one day I pulled it back to get it out of the way and there it was, enough length for most of it to go in a ponytail holder.

That made my decision. If I committed to growing my hair for the duration of the pandemic, I wouldn’t have to think about when to go to a salon again, I’d just stick with “let it grow” and make a ponytail donation at the end. This will be my second ponytail donation. My Son inspired me for the first. I figured if he was going to do it, then I could too.

I planned to put up a progress photo of my ponytail every week, thinking if anyone saw it they, might do the same. My photos got further and further apart and the pandemic lasted till my hair got scraggly. I decided to do the ponytail shag that a hairdresser friend taught me back in high school. It looked a little better. I did that 3 times before lopping it all off.

At the end, I looked up donation sites and found that everyone else had the same idea as me. There was more hair available than donation recipients can handle. That lifts my spirits. Give us a pandemic and we’ll make lemonade, or, you know, wigs. I cut it after omicron eased and hung on to the donation part. I’ll donate it when it’s needed again. And, here are the photos I did entered in reverse order, beginning with the final result. Maybe it’s enough to put bangs on a wig ?!?! :). My hair has been really quite thin since I had a high temperature in childhood.

My hair grayed a lot during the pandemic. I already had gray highlights about the face before. Russ likes them. One person thought I had them done at a salon. Most people didn’t even notice. There was a lot more gray noticeable when I cut all this off because the longer older hairs were gone, and the newer stressed hairs were more prominent. For some people, the color comes back after a bout of stress subsides, but I’m not holding my breath, or even particularly concerned. I do care about my overall health and know how important managing my stress response is. At the same time, I’m glad that some high profile people are conspicuously refusing to hide the expression that the passage of time has on their bodies. It makes the fact that I’m not going to alter my body or appearance as I age stand out less. I don’t know, maybe one day, when my hair is completely white, I’ll color it for the first time. Purple might suit me…

This was a page (had a button in the black bar above) while I was growing my hair out and sharing progress regularly, but I’ve copied it into a post now, leaving the higher profile slot available to site redesign.