"and his strength left him." (Judges 16:19b)

Tonight, I received my first real haircut in 7 years. It was genuinely fun; nothing like my junior high nightmare. Back then I went to my dad's "one-cut-wonder" barber--a little, bald, Italian man whose most interesting barbershop feature was the stack of black combs that he kept in a questionable blue liquid stationed on the counter.

Two of my twelve-year-old friends had recently started sporting flashy new hairstyles--short on the sides and back and long on top. In the interest of staying on the cutting edge, I decided to pay the barber a visit. I gave him the verbal specs of the new do; to which nodded sharply, patted my apron clad shoulder, and started snipping and buzzing. I knew I could trust him. I had no worries. After all, he had done this cut on hundreds of young lads.

Except that he hadn't. And his confident nod and pat were really just a smokescreen meant to distract me while he chiseled the same cut he always gave, except with some horrendous alterations. By the end of my time I knew one thing for certain: my friends didn't get their hair cut by my barber.

So, I gave up on the barber and went to a hair stylist. That lasted through my teenage and young adult years. Then one day I stopped going altogether. I guess I wanted a change. And now, I'm ready for change again.

So tonight I shed my locks after years of living like Samson, minus the riddles and Philistine warriors. I left my ponytail lying in fragments on a friends kitchen floor. Now, only one question remains: did I shed any strength with my hair?