Post Turkey weekend cheer

I had an absolutely marvelous long holiday weekend. I relaxed, ate, and laughed...a lot. Twice I had people say, "cute hat!" and I felt young and sassy. This might be the beginning of me looking for the bigger picture for why this happened. God always has a really good reason for everything and the problem is usually that I cannot see his logic or see beyond the pain to the positive outcome. Was I too dependant on my hair to give me confidence? Had I been subconciously critical of appearances? Did I need to let go and grow some more? I can't ever really know but it is all good.

Hats

At the risk of sounding like a cliche, read this high and lilting, with the voice inflections of Shirley Temple - I dare you.

"Say! How about, instead of getting a butch hair cut and being depressed, I pull out all of my old hats! I used to wear hats all the time. Hats are swell and they keep your head warm and - golly - winter is just around the corner. I have cowboy hats, knit hats, baseball hats, vamp hats, voyager hats, skunk-skin hats, Amish hats, pillbox hats, top hats...why you name it and I probably have one. Golly Gee sure! That's what I'll do."

OK, yes, maybe so. Not a bad idea. OK, but without the accent.

Obsessive vanity

My hair has been a pretty hot topic lately (in my mind anyway). I have been trying to decide if I should cut it short - like pixie short - and wear it that way for a while. That's not a big deal, right?

Except that I have lost about 60% of the volume in the last 30 days and although it is just a temporary loss as a result of the stress my body underwent last July, it rattles a woman's vanity. Just a couple years and it will be back...or so I hear. At least it isn't all falling out from Chemo ... it could have been that.

For most of my life I have had a lot of hair and all the way to my waist and I enjoyed being able to bun or braid or mop or whatever it. I like variety. I have never liked the maintenance of daily curling iron regimes - just not me. My husband trimmed off a foot so it is shoulder length now but really thin. If I cut it short I will need to style it or something and besides, I am heavier and older and wrinkly now and short hair will be so radically different for me - and it will be thin and wispy to boot. I am now obsessing about it and that is just vanity!

I never thought my hair defined me but I guess whatever becomes our norm becomes who we are and we build some degree of confidence around it even if it is on a subconscious level. Maybe I need to reinvent that part of me?

For now I think I will just cry some more, OK?

Need a roadmap.

I am processing emotions ... and reality ... and ethereal fears with such wild abandon that I can barely make sense of it. A friend told me to journal it out. That makes sense but the act of writing usually has so much baggage for me that is rooted in process such as spelling or sentence structure I usually loose inertia. Any previous attempt in my life has proven that, be-it journal, blog, or sketchbook. I also have a bad tendency to worry about someone seeing this at some point. But, if I am speaking the truth and about myself then it cannot be misconstrued as detrimental to others, right? Whatever tool I DO end up using, there is the definite need to process - and with more speed and clarity than is presently happening.

Don't misunderstand this post. I am not sick again or in some kind of traumatic spin - I just am in transition and need to decide on and act on the question, "who am I and who do I want to be tomorrow?" I feel like a 12 year old again.