repurposing.

I have had a large bag of shaved-off hair that I've been afraid to tackle. Until this morning.

After calling and looking up requirements for donating, I learned why the task had been so daunting: the hair had to be at least 10" long (NO problem!) and needed to be in a neat braid or ponytail (problem!). Thing is-when you're getting your head shaved in preparation for brain surgery, you forget to ask the nurse to put it in ponytails to cut off prior to shaving it. :)

So today's task was to untangle the big knot of hair and create ponytails, which, after much detangling, strand-by-strand straightening and even cutting to make it look neater, left me with 3 ponytails ready to donate to Locks of Love.

But there was over three times that amount leftover that I couldn't untangle, rendering it unusable by charities such as Locks of Love. There MUST be SOME other good this could be used for. This is exactly why Google was created!

After some searching, I found a non-profit environmental organization called Matter of Trust that has been making "hair booms" and "hair mats" to soak up emergency spills, such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico. They take any hair, fur, fleece, and feathers to make these booms and have made over 25 miles worth of booms in one month! Volunteers sort out the donations, make the booms, and are deployed to where they are most needed, which, right now, is the Gulf.

My hair will grow back and, in fact, I am enjoying the regrowth process because every centimeter shows how far I have come and I will not be ashamed of that or boo-hoo about how much it lacks.

I had been avoiding dealing with the shaved-off hair because I thought that the process would be cumbersome/painful. It was strange, yes, but I feel as if I will be investing a part of my former self into something much, much greater.

curtain call.

There is something so unbelievable beautiful about what happens behind the scenes-about people who work diligently for the betterment someone else, for a cause that is bigger than themselves.

The best part about this rare breed is that, although their labor certainly merits praise and attention, that is not what they seek.

Here's to people who know who they are without constant accolades, who do what they do without seeking personal gain, and who work silently for the greater good.

loaded questions.

In my last entry I was full of optimism and wrote that fear was gone. Little did I know that having my head cut open was only the beginning of this very dark and difficult journey.

People see the self that is healing, that is improving, and that is rebuilding. They have the best of intentions when asking about how I am doing; it's just that my answer is too long to say, too long to type, and who wants to hear the FULL truth anyway?

The thing is-they will never fully understand how triumphant each small victory was or the strength that was needed to complete each step in the process of complete recovery, a place I have yet to attain. The paralyzing fear of both the known and the unknown was something to overcome. The devastating loss of quality of life, though "temporary," was something to overcome. Every single day and every single night was something to overcome.

There were very dark days-ones where I thought I would never be able to sing again, ones where I thought I would never be able to walk again, ones where I thought I would never be able to teach again, ones where I thought I would never be able to be myself again, and ones where I thought that they might be my last. Truly.

I am not sharing that so you will pity me. Rather, I'd like to shed light on the depth of God's strength, without which, I could NOT have overcome.