A disclaimer:
I knew that a I'd have to post about my hair and my feelings about it when I started this blog. Then and now I recognize the vanity of it all, and even as I wrote this I hate to admit that every single hair on my head matters.
Even though many cancer patinets loose their hair on their second treatment, I still have hair. In fact only I can tell that it has thinned a little. Weeks ago to prepare for the mass exodus of hair from folcials I completely chopped off my hair. The new style is called a Pixie cut-- (think Julia Roberts in Hook or the super short do that Sharon Stone sports sometimes). It's RADICALLY different than any other style I've ever had, and because it's so different several people don't recognize me. Until yesterday I wasn't certain I liked it.
I went to church with Matt yesterday for the first time in several weeks. Several people approached me just to tell me how much they love the new cut! In fact, a couple of Matt's co-workers said word per word the exact same thing: "You must really hate how cute you look with that new hair cut." It was then that I realized that with the new hair cut I've been getting more attention from the opposite gender-- (don't worry. I am a VERY HAPPY newly wed. I make sure that the indivdual is blinded by the new 'bling bling' I acquired this July). It's been a great ego boost. It's as if I've reached the apex of good hair, now that I'm days or weeks away from it all falling out. Which makes it a more difficult to accept it's falling out.
Really, I’m okay with my hair falling out. All this attention to my hair right before it waves ado has given me some new perspective. Yes, it's only hair and it will grow back. It's been great to have these last couple weeks of feeling beautiful. Especially because I've been anticipating feeling and looking like a bald ugly shrew (and on some level I still do expect to feel that way when I loose it all). I realize now that there is some kind of power wrapped up in beauty- that strangers will talk and listen to you and even seek you out. In contrast, I'll cross the street to avoid scary or strange looking folks. I know better, and I especially know now that appearances are deceiving. My hair matters in how I perceive myself, and how I believe people perceive me. I read recently an account of another cancer survivor who said ‘baldness announces to a room of strangers that I have cancer without me ever saying a word.’ Most of all I'm frustrated with my own vanity, that my hair matters so much, and that it bothers me so much that I no longer have the power to determine who knows about my disease.
