Casting Off the Veil

I cut my hair. A lot. 

Following Chris’ funeral, I felt the need for something drastic. Something that symbolized how much my life had changed. Casting off my hair, for me, felt like a measure that matched the changes I am still going through. In some cultures, cutting one’s hair is part of the grieving process. For me, cutting my hair was not so much a symbol of my bereavement, rather a sign of my transformation.

In part, cutting my hair was something tangible I could do. After weeks of wanting to make sure everything was right for Chris through all of the services and transitions, going to the salon was something I could do for myself, on my own terms. It was a way of facing Chris’ death through action, and facing that first real life conversation where I would have to tell a stranger that my husband is dead. I was more terrified of that moment than chopping off all of my hair. And I survived, without receiving looks of extreme pity. 

My hair around the time I met Chris

Cutting off my hair was also a way of letting go. When I met Chris, my hair was long. I have changed lengths and styles since, including donating over 12 inches while Chris was in Iraq. He encouraged me to cut it then. But I am not that same girl anymore.  No matter how much I move forward from here, I am changed forever. There will always be a sadness in me. In losing Chris, I lost an innocence that I won’t ever know again. Letting go of my hair was a way of releasing that image of myself. 

My hair was also a veil. It was something I could hide behind. When Jolly 22 went down, the accident thrust all of the families into a spotlight we were not really prepared for. Our grief was never fully private. Instead of trying to run from it, we tried to embrace it with grace. For me, that was a moment where I realized my pain was very public already—there was no hiding. With that veil of privacy removed, it only seemed fitting that my physical veil should follow. I am baring myself to the world. 

That is a scary thing for someone who has always kept her emotions bottled fairly tightly. I think the first time Chris ever saw me cry, I scared him a little (I wonder what he thinks now that I have had some really ugly cries). By losing my best friend, I lost any desire to seem truly composed. I don’t care if the world knows I am sad because I lost the most beautiful thing I knew. That is sad. There is no hiding from that fact. 

There was also a part of me that wanted to feel a little bit ugly. I was moderately convinced that short hair would look awful on me. I have numerous friends and family on whom short hair looks amazing. They are beautiful women with great faces. The nice thing about having long hair is that you feel you can hide all sorts of flaws underneath. I have always thought of myself as an incredibly flawed creature. So much so that I often could not fathom how I married such perfection (trust me, I know he wasn’t perfect either, but he was perfect for me). I was in awe of Chris’ love for me.

For anyone who knows me fairly well, I am my own worst critic—a perfectionist who sets unreasonable demands for herself. Chris had a way of cutting through that perfectionism, of getting me to just relax and be myself. I didn’t feel like I had to try as hard most of the time. Still, I always wanted to be my best for him—I wanted to mirror all the beauty I saw in Chris. While I tried to be a beautiful wife, what I wanted most was to offer Chris a loving and kind wife, someone he could take pride in (as I took pride in him). 

Somehow, I gave my hair the power to make me beautiful when I often did not feel that way. It is trivial, I know, but it is the reality of how I felt. And I think it is a feeling many women can relate to. I am trying to let that go. For better or worse, this is who I am. I can’t change the ugliness of my circumstance any more than I can change the things I don’t like about my face. Cutting my hair releases me from some of my superficiality and helps me focus on where beauty counts the most.

Frankly, beyond what my hair meant symbolically, I was at a point where I didn’t care if I looked terrible-- which seemed like the best time to take the risk. I am glad I did. I don’t feel the same, I don’t want to look the same. My body feels a little more congruous with my sense of self. At least for the time being. In the end, I think Chris would have applauded the cut—far less maintenance and more practical for running.

The new "do"... a little long (my hair grows really fast).