I am not my hair

I was the long haired girl, sleeping in pink sponge rollers to create curls that never held up to the Lowcountry humidity. Once my grandmother said, "Your hair makes you." And I know she only meant to say that she thought I was pretty, but she also was telling me to never cut my hair. Before she died, just after my freshman year of college, I sat on the edge of the hospital bed and turned my head and said, "Look how long my hair is," hoping it would make her smile even though she was in pain. Since then, I've chopped off my hair several times. To make me look more professional, to help me embrace a cross country move, to simplify my first year of motherhood. As it turns out, I actually like my hair long. I've been growing it out since 2010. Last weekend, I went to the salon. A few inches hit the floor and a song played in my mind, "I am not my hair. I am not this skin. I am the soul that lives within." 

This post is part of a series and a theme I'm exploring for the month of August, "Awakening". To read all the posts in this series, click here.