It’s time! I’m ready, I think.
I’ve been holding off on scheduling a hair cut. Cutting my hair short before chemo didn’t really bother me. Losing my hair wasn’t particularly stressful. Having it grow back in has been a learning curve – thanks curls I now have and never had before. But taking that step to schedule my first post cancer hair cut, has been monumental. I’ve talked about doing it since at least the beginning of December but always said I would get to it after my next round of follow up appointments. Then I would look at the calendar and realize that I only had “a few weeks” until another set and would allow myself to “just wait a little longer.” This time, I’m not giving myself that permission. This time, I need to be in. I need to do it.
Let’s take a look back at the journey.
September 2023 – My hair is coming in and everyone LOVES my pixie cut. It wasn’t a cut. It was just the amazing way God was bringing my hair back in. I had no capacity for considering what I could or should be doing with my hair.
Come to November and I have started to feel a it like an ice cream cone. The curl is starting to show itself and I have a little flip all the way around my head. I don’t mind it too much because it is thick and full and at the time that was a big deal.
Keep moving along to back while the boys were still playing basketball – so I’m going to say in February – I asked a cousin who is a hairstylist her opinion on what I could maybe do because it is now in my eyes and crazy. She was incredibly gracious and gave me several options. She even encouraged me to mix them together and tell her that I liked the bangs of this one and the back of that one. I started mixed some ideas together but every time I would get overwhelmed so instead of scheduling a hair appointment, I turned to headbands and bobby pins.
March, April and May were filled with more headbands and bobby pins. And now I needed spray in conditioner to keep the curls from being crazy. Daily hair washings were also a thing. This was more daily effort than I had ever put into my hair. I was ready to chop it all off BUT then came June.
In June, I realized that I could put my hair into a barrette and get it half up. In fact, I could also carefully pull it back into two pony tails and have some semblance of an “up do” for gardening or cleaning. Now, there was no way I was cutting it. I could get it out of my face. Then, June wore on and my hair got longer and bigger.
Enter my July appointments where I told myself that I would schedule a hair appointment as long as my follow ups went well. Why I was waiting for my oncologists “all clear” to cut my hair makes no sense looking back but it was what my brain had repeatedly done. If I were to guess, it had something to do with the ability for me to keep pushing off what was surely to be a bit of an emotional phone call. Cutting hair that you’ve worked so hard to regrow from literal scratch is harder than I expected. I also think that I may now be afraid of losing the curl that I have come to love because apparently there is a thing called chemo curl where your hair comes back in curly but after a few inches changes texture. Anyway, here we are. I got a good report from my doctors and I forced myself to move forward. My hair appointment is officially scheduled. I even scheduled it for this week so I don’t have time to talk myself out of it. I’ve also bravely looked for what I think I want and even run it past a few trusted friends and family members.
It’s amazing to me how much cancer has changed even these kinds of little every day things. It is hard to believe that I would ever be hesitant to go into a hair cut. That I would be nervous about seeing people I haven’t seen in two years and who I likely won’t see again for six months or more. Cancer doesn’t just change your body. It changes how you think, how you act and how you interact with the world. It is time for me to take this step forward but that doesn’t mean taking the step is easy.
Here’s to facing the silly hard things and new chapters. Here’s to recognizing how life has changed and how to move forward. Here’s to continuing to grow and become more myself.