I do not want what I haven't got

Ran out of work today at lunch and had Joni at the wig shop shave me. I still had about a quarter of my hair (which I have quite a lot of, though it is very fine) but it was very much crossed over into the mange phase. Last night Sawyer said I could pass for a particularly tough looking Capitol Hill lesbian, which I took as a compliment.

However, what a mess.  Everywhere I went, I was surrounded by a halo of little hairs. At my computer at work, falling onto the cutting board making dinner, and at the sink - ugh. Every collar on every coat or shirt I have worn for the last few days looks like a cat has been sleeping on it for a week. The effect on my house, along with having three visiting dogs over the holiday, has been interesting - eddies of  various length and colored hair in every corner and behind every door.

But, I'm excited about turning the page and busting out my various sheitels. (Thank you, Jess, for offering to rock the Hassidic wig shops of Williamsburg for me. Worth going in just for the kulcha, yes?)

I'm not very patient when it comes to transitions.

I didn't get a good full sinead o'connor shot for you, but there will be time for that (I'll likely be looking pretty bald through late April). In the meantime:

Meet Rachel, a savvy urban professional.  She likes to listen to classic books on her kindle while biking, European travel, and the Pre-Raphaelites. She is a proud member of JASNA and an accomplished seamstress and haberdasher, but lacks much time for the latter since her job as a junior partner at a boutique firm (mostly M&A) requires so much time. She loves spending time with her Bouvier des Flandres dog, Pago, who is her best friend. While her second marriage recently ended in separation, she feels fulfilled by her great circle of friends, her book club, and her volunteer work with the American chapter of Child Soldiers International. She plans to travel to Congo for the first time in May to meet some of these kids.

**

I think the wigs are really indulging my geminian ways. It's too expensive to have more than the two I have now, but I could definitely keep going with the different looks and personas if there weren't a barrier.

I was laughing with Joni as she buzzed my manky hair off and she gravely offered that I was "so brave." This one is a puzzler. I will humbly say thank you when people tell me this, but I don't intellectually quite understand how I could be brave when I've not really made any choices in all this. Well, I guess I've made the choice not to have a bad attitude, but that feels self-preserving, which seems the opposite of bravery.

I'm just making my way through this the way that comes naturally to me. If having a sense of fun and humor about it strikes people as brave, I guess bravery was a lot easier than I thought it was!

Speaking of being brave, I found out today that many women don't lose their eyebrows and eyelashes on CT until the very end, or even after chemo, so that's good. (Sometimes they fall out and regrow several times after treatment before they decide to stick around. Chemo is fo sho a hardcore battle in the body, with continued affects.)

I feel like the eyebrows especially are the real marquee hair loss feature proclaiming to the world you're in chemo. It feels like a much more fair deal to lose them at the end when you are starting to grow your head hair back.