Today sucks. I mean it really sucks. Why? Thanks for asking. I’d love to tell you. (Thanks, Elyse Myers.)

Today is the day that my hair meets the buzz saw – clippers, really. It was a week ago today that Brian and I met my hair guru, Brad Hestand, and he helped me go from long to short hair. Small bits of hair had started to come out of my head, so I knew that I needed to go shorter so that it wouldn’t be such a shock when it was time for it to all go.

I’ve begged, pleaded and prayed to sweet baby Jesus this week for my hair to hold on, just through the weekend and Uncle Garland’s funeral. But it looks like it’s all been for naught because the hair just keeps falling out. I guess that it’s time.

I keep telling myself over and over again that it’s just hair. It’s going to grow back. Maybe it will be a different color or maybe it will be curly, but it will come back. That’s what my head says but in my heart, it’s a different story.

I don’t think I’m a particularly vain person but my hair is inextricably tied to my identity. It’s part of what makes me – well, me. It was tough going from long to short but to go from short to not at all? I knew it would happen but somewhere, in this teeny, tiny part of me, I was really holding out hope that it wouldn’t.

I really really wanted to keep my hair. I wasn’t asking for a whole lot – just that. And not to have a misshapen head. And to cure my cancer. (I felt as if adding an ask to win the lottery this week might be a tad too far.)

So we will see in a couple of hours just how pale and misshapen (or not) my head is. I’ll keep loving my baseball hats and beanies and the fact that they cover up my noggin. I’m not ready for it, but it’s where I am today. And at least now my dad and I will have matching haircuts!

UPDATE: My head is symmetrical!!!