One month into quarantine and you’re feeling claustrophobic.

You drink a Corona Light, then another, letting its chemical flavors lull you into a disarmingly mellow state of mind. You absently twirl a lock of your hair. Then the thought ignites, glittering like a firefly on a summer night: Cut your hair. It’s the devil whispering, but you don’t know that yet, and before long, you’re under his spell. You grab a pair of scissors and before you know it, you’re snipping away at your long, scraggly, overgrown bangs.

You step back and suddenly you realize what you’ve done. Like thousands of others, you’ve given yourself a bad quarantine haircut.

At first, you’re devastated. You desperately try to find the control-Z button before remembering that this is real life, or at least the illusion of it. You wander around your apartment in a haze, realizing that there is no escaping what you’ve done. Now what?

Remember: There will be grieving for the old times. And it is okay to allow yourself to grieve. No thing is too small or too large; there is no one way to react to a tragedy. Most likely, especially if you cut your hair during coronavirus quarantine, you were subconsciously trying to control a frankly uncontrollable situation. You were given a choice—bake bread or cut your hair—and you chose the road less traveled, the wild, risky road, and now you face the consequences.

Yes, you can grieve for the moments before you decided to cut your hair. But of course, there comes a time to realize that the old ways are done, extinguished like the massive supernova that recently exploded in a distant galaxy. You can miss them, and you can miss your former hair, which you took for granted for so long.

But remember the adage: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” You cannot change your hair, in the immediate sense. But you can choose how you style it—and you can choose how you respond to it.

Your hair will grow back, just as the cherry blossoms burst from the trees every spring, as sure as the sun rises. But perhaps this could be an opportunity. Do you want your hair to grow back—or do you want to grow forwards? Do you want to go back in time to the world before quarantine, or do you want to figure out a way to grow something new? What seeds will you plant? Will you hide your hair in shame, or adorn it with crowns of flowers?

these awkward, uncomfortable, fearsome days will pass. Do you allow this to throw you off course? Or do you fully accept your fate? Do you channel your fear into love? Do you look deeper into your own heart, past your hair and into your spirit? Do you stand up for what you believe in, and for who you really are? Or do you let your bad fringe control you, driving you further down into the darkness?

You (and the IRS) create your own reality. Ask yourself not what you can do for your hair. Ask yourself what your hair can do for you. Maybe this could be the catalyst for great change—a wakeup call, a painful opening of what will become a portal to healing and redemption.* Or maybe not. You don’t have to be productive during a pandemic. At the very least, just remember that everything is temporary–our planet, our lives, our pain, our sickness, and yes, even our bad haircuts.

(*If you’ve yet to cut your hair during quarantine, forget all this. Don’t do it. We promise).