I finally did it. After years of screwing up the courage to get my hair chopped off, I did it. And my poor sister, who wielded the scissors, nearly had heart failure as a result.
It started as a trim, with some layering involved. Now Sis is a wizard with hair, and recently gave my squirming 2-year-old a great cut, so I trust her implicitly. My hair was past my waist, and has been for 15 years or so, and I knew she wouldn’t butcher it or give me a crew cut.
But after thirty minutes of snipping, she stepped back and sat down, pale beneath her tan. “You’re going to hate me,” she said. Uh-oh, she’d better be joking, right? Nope. She said she actually felt sick to her stomach, seeing what she’d done to my curls.
The bathroom mirror showed a triangular wedge of hair on the right side of my head, about eight inches shorter than intended. Oops. The left side was still long, though. Deep breath, and smile – ok, can she fix it? She offered to take me to a real beautician and pay to get it fixed, but I declined. She doesn’t have a lot of money to throw around, and neither do I.
Hands shaking, she started cutting again, trying to repair the damage. She actually broke out in a sweat. She filled a small wastebasket with hair. She even said at one point, “You’re never going to speak to me again, and I have enough sisters who don’t speak to me. I’d hate to lose the only one left who does, all because of a bad haircut.” I told her, “It’s only hair. It’ll grow back if I hate it.” Bless her, she knows how vain I am about my hair, and she gritted her teeth and kept cutting.
And it turned out BEAUTIFULLY! Now I have bouncy curls around my face and shoulders, and she put pretty highlights in it, too. It’s the best haircut I’ve ever had, and I’m about three pounds lighter and 15 degrees cooler. Big sisters are the best, sometimes. Now I’m cute, and she’s relieved. 
So, anyone else have near-disastrous haircuts that turned out ok? Or, for that matter, ones that didn’t turn out ok?
