Sunday Meditation #50: Haircut 100 (Million Bucks)

It was the first haircut in nearly two months. The first since uprooting from Kansas and moving to Maryland. Nearly two months is an eternity for hair that goes from acceptably shaggy to "just climbed out of a hamper" in the blink of an eye. It was time, and it made me feel like a million bucks. Felt good.

Walking back to the car in the cooling humidity of a rain-washed evening, I didn't think much of why I felt so good, although I savored it. By "think too much of it" I mean there was no attempt to analyze this rush of what many would call mild euphoria. Contentment. A calmness upon the mind. This is a goodness in very short supply.

Upheaval and dislocation have been the prime drivers of my depression and anxiety for over a year. Isolation and lack of daily companionship drawing the curtains on a dark room in which I could not find the door. I had light when I needed it, sometimes, when good people, good friends opened their hearts (and occasionally their homes) to me. I would not have survived gracefully moving cross-country if not for the companionship of my daughter. This lights still shines in my head.

Not to say I have yet unlocked the door. Diving into a new job turned up the heat and pressure, in ways I expected but still involve struggle for balance. Mornings require a pep talk to arise from the bed. Weeks require a therapy pit stop to relocate and recalibrate. I look for that which provides a nudge back to the path, but energy often drains swiftly away into fatigue. I know that many people say sometimes you just have to roll with it, but an affirmation of direction would be welcome.

No surprise that self-care of certain kinds took a back seat to simply making it through the day. Getting a haircut barely registered on the scale of things I needed to be present in my life. Evidence of this was the shagginess I saw in the mirror one morning last week. It wasn't the guy I used to know. He looked more like an 18th century engraving of a half-insane composer. I think my cat even gave me a few "Time to trim the weeds" looks.

The curious thing was that it took me three weeks to make a decision. Twenty one days to make up my damn mind about a simple thing like getting a haircut. A sure sign that things are out of whack from living too much in my own head.

I arrived home from the haircut relaxed, unwound. The mirror showed me a very different face from the one I had woken up with earlier in the day. It was a face looking relaxed, content, and knowing it had a million dollars in the bank of the spirit. It was the face of a human being.