If a Tree Falls In The Forest and There Is No One There to Hair, Am I Really Bald?

A tale of lost hair and self regained.

Decades ago, while going through a divorce, during the Winona Ryder days of short hair, I went for it. 

Marriage? Chop. 

Hair? Chop.

A less dramatic woman would have chosen tiny scissors and a new set of awful bangs. Not me. Get out the chain saw baby, we’re taking it down. 

I didn’t spend any time thinking about it in advance. I just decided and went to some random hair dresser that same day.

The first week was awful. I felt unclothed. I felt like Shrek. I felt barren, vulnerable, remorseful.

Then slowly, I stopped caring. I felt a little bolder, a little taller, a little fiercer. I had a secret that only women who dared to take their hair down with a weedwacker know. We hide behind our hair and when you take it away, you find yourself.

This past August, nearly 30 years later, I shaved my head for a different reason. Chemo was going to take it, so I beat it to the punch. 

As the inches of perfectly colored hair hit the ground around me, I didn’t care. I was drinking from a firehouse of medical terms, had a 24 hour a day chemo drip in my arm and my hair was matted to my head from lying in a hospital bed. I wanted it gone. It was useless. I had no energy to style it. To impress who? My doctors and nurses? 

Unlike other types of cancer, leukemia isn’t outpatient. You are diagnosed, and you move in. I lived at the hospital in a bubble for months, coming home to live in another bubble for short stints to gain strength and prepare to go back for the next treatment. I didn’t think about being bald. No one cared about my hair, they cared about my cure. 

As I neared the end of my treatments, something interesting happened. No conscious decision was made, but when I got up to go for walks, I started grabbing a beanie to pull over my bald head. 

On December 4th, family and friends gathered to cheer me on as I rang the cancer free bell. I donned not only a beanie, but a wig to go under it.

My lack of hair hadn’t mattered when no one saw me. 

Now as my world started to open up, I became very aware of my baldness. 

I wouldn’t leave the house without my wig and hat. I wouldn’t share an Instagram story without them. No photos could be taken until I got up and put my hair on.

But it wasn’t about the hair. 

This time being bald wasn’t a bold choice. 

This time my baldness screamed cancer. It caused people to see me as weak, not bold and strong. 

It caused people to smile with pity and sadness or worse, look away. Not seeing me at all.

The wigs allowed me to hide. I was like everyone else. No one would know. 

Except me. I knew. Every time I put on that wig, I felt like a fraud. Not strong. Not bold. 

And when I couldn’t take another day of the itching, the paranoia that my wig would slip revealing the truth of my bald head, the overwhelming feeling of being a fraud, I took it off. 

There was no fanfare, I just took it off and I put it away. 

I baldly went out in public. I walked into rooms filled with friends who hadn’t yet seen me bald and watched as they reacted, each one differently.

I turned the camera on, double tapped it into selfie mode and started recording. I did it all with a confidence I didn’t yet have, but was determined to find.

I wish I could say I no longer care what anyone thinks about me. That taking the wig off that day made me effortlessly bold. 

I still care. But, I care less. I’m working on caring less than less.

I’m making my way back to that bold, empowered young woman I found 30 years ago. The one who was fearless enough to take a chance, start over and find herself.

» Savoring Shares & Comments
If you like what you read on The Savoring I would be so grateful if you could like, comment and share my posts with friends you think would love it as much as you do. Your shares will help me gain a larger following and allow me to keep at it. ❤️

In Case You Missed It

The Sunday Savoring will be in your inbox this Sunday. In case you missed last week’s, you can check it out here » The Sunday Savoring, #7

Last Week’s Thursday Thoughts: The Merits of Seasons, Agony of College Drop Offs and Comforts of Fall Decor