Hair

“Ask a woman about her hair, and she just might tell you the story of her life.” – Elizabeth Benedict

As you can probably tell from the photo above, I haven’t been to my hair stylist since March 10. Before the advent of the coronavirus I had no intention, at least in the forseeable future, of going back to my natural hair color. In the pre-covid days I would actually get sort of embarrassed in the last days leading up to my stylist appointment. I couldn’t wait to cover up the unsightly stripe of steel gray that was invading my light brown coif like weeds in a pristine lawn. But over the last four months the idea of ditching the $100-every-seven-weeks habit of the past several years has grown on me. 

Women have such a complicated relationship with their hair – too curly, too straight, too thin, too thick, frizzy, limp, wrong color. It seems rare to meet a woman who is completely happy with her hair. I know my own relationship with my hair has had its ups and downs. 

From birth to about 12 years old I never thought about my hair at all. Then puberty came and my hair became curly, so of course I had to do everything I could over the next several decades to try to (mostly unsuccessfully) blow dry the curls into submission. At the ripe old age of about 46 I finally decided to embrace the curls. My hair color at this time was a natural light brown, and I would sometimes have my stylist add a few highlights to it. I was really rocking the curly hair there for a while, right up until I found out that I would lose it all to chemotherapy. 

In order to ease the transition to baldness, I got a pixie cut. That lasted about three weeks, at which point my hair began to fall out in large clumps and I asked Chris to give me a buzz cut. Being bald didn’t really bother me. Honestly it was the least of my worries at the time. I was more concerned about surviving. I wore a wig to school, which was hot and uncomfortable, but I wanted to project some sense of normalcy for my third-grade students. When I wasn’t working I had a collection of berets that I wore when going out into the world.

When the hair grew back and got beyond the fuzzy baby-chick stage, I was shocked that not only was my base hair color much darker than before, but there was quite a bit more gray than before as well. I looked at myself in the mirror and didn’t feel like my appearance matched the “me” I had always been. It seemed unfair that cancer took one more thing from me. At the same time, I felt incredibly grateful just to have hair on my head again. It seemed frivolous at the time to do anything about the color, but eventually I took the plunge and went back to my light-brown-with-golden-highlights look. The expense didn’t thrill me, but I never really thought about stopping.

Enter COVID-19.

Women all over the world have been grappling with their hair color during these last few months. Some turned to color-in-a-box (which stores apparently couldn’t keep on the shelves, the demand was so high). Many ran to their stylist as soon as restrictions were eased, and breathed a sigh of relief when order was restored to their hair. Many, like me, didn’t feel comfortable returning to their stylist even when allowed by local authorities. It felt too soon and we still didn’t feel ready. I’m thinking that sometime in September I may return (if the virus numbers improve), but I’ve made the decision that I won’t be going in for color. I may get a super-short cut to get rid of most of the old color, or I may just have it trimmed back to the length it was before the pandemic. 

I’m keeping the color that I decided 5 years ago wasn’t “me”, because over the last few months I’ve come to realize my hair color actually isn’t that important to me anymore. Maybe it’s because I’ve realized that I’ve come to terms with the other things that cancer took from me. Maybe it’s because I realize that I actually love growing older and embracing the gray feels right and natural. I don’t know. All I know is, when I think about my “new” hair color and what it might look like when it’s all grown out, I feel happy and excited.  That’s enough for me.

I’m a great lover of before-and-after photos, so with that in mind I thought I would share with you some pictures of my hair journey:

Love,

Michelle xoxo