The Trouble With Hair

 

Hahaha!!  Is that true??

 

 

"It's just hair."  "It will grow back."  "You will have so much fun experimenting with different styles."  "It's temporary."  "People don't care if you have hair or not."  "You are just as beautiful without hair as you are with hair."  

 

These are all things I have been told over the last however many months since I had to shave my head.  I know that everyone is just trying to be supportive and keep me positive.  And I appreciate that, I really do.  But lets be honest:  no one who has told me or that will tell me "It's just hair" will actually shave their head.  And why is that?  BECAUSE IT IS HAIR THATS WHY!!!  And we all know that it's a way bigger deal than just shaving it and letting it grow back.  It will grow back that's a fact.  Can't argue that (and trust me, if there is an argument ANYWHERE to be found I will be the first to bring it up.  I really should have been a lawyer). 

 

But listen to me for just a minute.  Let me tell you what it is really like to be a female with no hair.  IT IS WEIRD.  So weird that at times you look in the mirror and don't see you anymore.  You see a face with no hair, and that face doesn't look the same to you as it used too.  And the longer you have no hair, the harder it is too see the real you.  You start to feel like maybe your hair is what made you the person you were and what attracted people to you.  You start to feel like everyone in your inner circle is just being nice and that they don't really want to be seen with you, they just don't want to hurt your feelings.  You start to think that even your spouse is repulsed by you, because after all, he didn't marry a woman with no hair.  He married a woman who had always had long blonde hair.  So how could he (or anyone else) still find her attractive?  What man wants to be with a woman that now, at least in her mind, looks like a man too?  Even when your spouse assures you that your lack of hair doesn't matter to him at all, you still doubt.  You start to think that if your friends have not contacted you as much as they have in the past, it has to be because you look like a total freak (even though you know they are just busy and that they would still do anything for you).  IT IS REALLY HARD. 

 

 

I have tried to stay as positive as possible throughout this whole crappy ordeal aka cancer.  And I am trying to stay positive about the hair regrowth too.  And I'm certain that to those reading this who have never experienced any of this themselves are appalled that I would even complain about something as trivial as hair after having just beat cancer.  And maybe it does seem trivial.  But until you experience it (and I hope you never do) you just can't understand.  Yes, physically I have overcome a life-threatening disease.  But the mental impact of that process is something I never expected.  I'm a positive person so I figured the mental impact would be minimal.  But it isn't.  IT IS REALLY HARD. 

 

 

   I have been stuck on this for the last few weeks and can't stop obsessing about it.  I'm hoping this passes pretty fast and I can move on.  Will I be OK?  Yes.  Will I struggle every morning getting ready for work, trying to convince myself that I don't look as ridiculous as I think I do?  Yes.  Will I soon decide that maybe my friends really do still want to be around me and they aren't just trying to be nice?  I sure hope so.  Will I start to accept that my husband is telling me the truth and he really doesn't care about my hair?  I'm sure I will. 

 

I'm going to end this post with progress pictures.  The hair is actually growing a whole lot faster than I expected!  It has been almost six full weeks since the last time we shaved it.  Sure doesn't seem like it was that long ago!