I'm three!

It's been just about 3 years since the shaving, and I've all but forgotten everything about it. In fact, I primarily utilize it as an attention-getting story. Lol. Looks like it was time for a refresher.

Enter Real Simple magazine's 3rd annual life lessons essay contest. I really couldn't come up with stories about other risks I've taken, so it seemed like head-shaving would be the one. I also didn't actually do any writing beforehand, although I started planning for it 7 weeks out. Fail again. I wonder how much I've really learned in the last 3 years. It seems like so close, and yet so far away.

So updates on the pate: It's just now finally reaching shoulder-blade length, and I HATE MY HAIR. I can't imagine or remember it ever looking nice long. I got really addicted to the cute cut I had in the last photo I posted, and I keep wishing I had the balls to cut it back to that length again. The thing is, now I'm sorta planning a wedding for waaaay off in the future (like, a year) and again, my mental idea of a bride includes long, romantic hair. I guess here comes the gamble: Will I even be able to simulate amazing romantic long hair? And to be honest, does that even reflect who I really am any more?

Or what if I cut it off, and cry because I'm an ugly bride?

Clearly I have some lessons to re-learn on giving up vanity. :P

P.S. Shaving my head permanently made me start breaking out a lot. I blame the fact that I touched my head/face all the time. Oh well, time for a diet and lifestyle change!

So much has happened in the last three years - total dip away from the hyperactive fervor I display for my faith at the time, ended relationship, ended another relationship, made brand-new friends, hit rock bottom, came back up for air by grace, and explored all sorts of jobs and non-jobs. I think one thing I wished for did indeed come true... "If I can shave my head, I can do ----- too."

Not to be super spiritual again - for I have mostly abandoned that method of public declaration - but the following comes to mind:

He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

If hair is traditionally a symbol of human strength, per Samson, then I was much better off without it.

P.S. No idea if I'll actually complete the essay, but I think I might make a Hail Mary attempt and write it up, just for the sake of completing something I plan to do.