[Nov. 22] A 56-year-old white woman with dreadlocks just is not OK.
So today I got my hair chopped off.
My hair was turning into clumps that didn’t look like hair, and it couldn’t be washed or combed. It was just getting in the way of all the medical equipment.
The doctors had only shaved a small patch for my drain on the left, and had barely infiltrated the hairline when they prepped my right side for surgery.
My shoulder-length hair was still quite plentiful, but it didn’t look like hair. The dried blood, hardened gel from the brain scans, and just plain dirt had turned large sections of it into a solidified mat.
Nora, the nurse tech, did her best to wash my hair first. But I told her not to go to too much trouble. I was ready to be done with it.
She took a shears and pointed to where she’d cut it, running the smooth side along my skin so that I could feel how short it was. “Go for it!” I said.
And in a minute, it was gone. I feel like the proverbial shorn lamb. It is SHORT.
It hasn’t been this short since I was a freshman in high school. It won’t cover ANY of my neck.
I don’t know how long it will take to grow back to where it was – probably at least a year, maybe more.
Pictures will have to wait. For now it was just a chop job.
I associate short hair with being ugly.
When I was little I had beautiful long hair, but Mom got sick of washing it and tugging a comb through it, so she whacked it off when I started first grade. In the same year, I got glasses. So I went from being a pretty child to an ugly one (as seen in the featured image above).
Eventually I grew my hair out again. And then I got a “pixie” cut for sophomore year in high school. Another trauma… I cried big tears, and dreamed of having long hair again.
Oh well. I don’t want to deal with my hair right now. My brain has enough pain to cope with.
The penny for this day is a scrungy 1975 (D series), for the pixie haircut. I really, really hope this one looks better than that one did.
[This post was written after the fact, recreated from notes and photos, and published under the date that the events occurred.]
I’m still reading! My mom put a perm in my hair. It’s always something. Thankfully it grows!
Yay!!! I’m really thankful to have such loyal readers like you and Sara.
I could write an entire series about the trials and tribulations I’ve been through with my hair… and yeah, at least it grows. See the post for Jan. 4 🙂
I was reminded of the same experience, Laura….those horrible, smelly perms I would get at my mother’s hair salon. She was sure that by frying my thin, lank hair with toxins, I would be transformed into a self confident beauty. It never worked but for the rest of my life I was sure that if only I had pretty hair, it would change my destiny. I died it, dried it, curled it, flipped it and I DID feel pretty. Now after several years of chemo I have gray, think lank hair again. Is that some kind of karma??