On Wednesday, I didn't like my haircut. 

I got it on Tuesday. I love my hairdresser. LP and I go together, and she cuts LP's hair while I "process," so to speak. We discussed length, and how women my age all want to grow their hair out one last time, and how I need layers to avoid looking like a Cocker Spaniel. We discussed various minutiae and finally I said, "Just do whatever you think will be best," and she said, "I always get my way, no matter what we say."

And I didn't like my haircut. 

I spent a whole day, Wednesday, not liking it. Maybe it didn't curl enough that day, or maybe I regretted the last few haircuts, at which we let a few layers grow out further, obviously unsuccessfully, or maybe I wished I still had the longer hair of the haircut before that. 

Seriously, I don't know. Because by Thursday, haircuts seemed like the least important thing in the world. I moved around in shock; I didn't cry much, only with LP, in fact, the one person I would have liked to reassure by *not* crying in her presence.

"Snowman is okay, but…" I said these words over and over again. I'm grateful that The Father of My Children told his side of the family. I never even told my people far away, because what could they do? He's fine. Bruised, but fine. 

Thursday afternoon, the Host Mama, the mother of the friend the boys called after the late night accident, worried that he seemed lethargic, and I had a bad couple of hours until he woke up again and I could talk to him and determine that really it was the medicine he had taken making him dopey, not some hidden injury. 

I found that some people assumed I felt traumatized and others figured I was fine because he wasn't dead or in the hospital.

Do we know these things are coming, somehow? On Wednesday morning, I made sure he had his health insurance card. As we were leaving, Pure Luck said, "Be careful out there among the English," a movie reference the young one did not understand. It's not something he says often. But I gave a normal goodbye at the bus station, affectionate without being overly emotional. We've put him on that bus to Boston, whether to South Station or to Logan, many times over the past three years. There have been weather anomalies and flight delays, even a night spent stranded at O'Hare, but never a real problem. In the afternoon he sent a text–another delay, somewhere. He booked his own ticket this time, so I didn't even have the itinerary. 

He'll be 20 in a few more months.

Thank God, he will be 20.

The day unfolded as expected, and every time I looked in the mirror, I thought, "I don't like my haircut." People could tell you, I said it out loud. In the evening, I waited for the call announcing a safe arrival, figured he was having fun and had forgotten. At 8:50, I left him a voice mail. They were probably having dinner. At 10, I posted a Facebook status saying I missed him. Shortly after that the car went off the road. 

In the hospital, his friends said, "Your hair looks fine." He wears it straight up, on purpose, and although he had to pick dirt out of it until he was able to shower, the hair stood on end, just the way he likes it.

Mine, too, after those late night phone calls and two worrying days. But knowing that he is okay, I don't care anymore about my haircut.