Wearing self-confidence

My new best friend is Poss. Short for Possum (aka Roadkill). It’s because she resembles a piece of roadkill attached to a head band … Enter stage left, the fake fringe. She is by far the best $30 I have ever spent. Versatile little bugger – front, back, even doubles as an Adam/Eve fig leaf if you really need a giggle!

Despite my best attempts at embracing all that chemo brings, including a bigger bank balance (no hair care bills for the next two years!), I still look like a chemo patient. And I still feel self-conscious at times that there’s just no way of hiding that bald section near my ears or covering my massive forehead that was once the background to a flick-over fringe.

People who don’t otherwise know me have actually commented on my cool hat/scarf/Frenchie chic look (that would be Poss+ when she's out in combo with my ‘couture bamboo soft cap’). I smile and thank them... if ONLY they knew what lies beneath…

But other than fluffing out my head wear and my self-confidence, Poss brings a big lesson: that even the smallest of gestures can counter the greatest of grief.

Losing my hair from chemo

I sat in the shower as the water washed over my head and ran my hands over, knowing that I was about to bear witness to loss. At first it was wonderment. And relief that this moment was finally here - the one thing everyone fears the most with chemo. I'm always one for planning and preparation, but I just couldn't reconcile that there were literally hundreds of hairs on my palms each and every time I touched my sore head. It was as if I was seeing it for the first time, every time. Like those tv infomercial ads that never stop..."But wait!! There's more!!"

Then I cried. I'm not sure why. It's not like I didn't know it was coming. Maybe because this was about more than just hair, because it felt like a moment to be reborn. Under the shower. Peeling off hundreds of layers. Of memories. Of lost wishes. Of new hopes. Is this really what it means to have so much of ourselves wrapped up in our hair? Men are now becoming more able to save/regrow/regain otherwise lost youth or confidence. But for women it's so much a part of our path into becoming a woman and owning who we are. It's every compliment. Every touch of a lost love. Of a heated embrace. Running fingers through fringes - that was my thing. Every hairdresser that would comment on the colour, the wave, the texture. Red. Ranga. Strawb.

My self-confidence, like almost every other woman, was so intricately tied up in my hair (pardon the pun). I applaud anyone who, like me, has sat in a hairdresser's chair, waiting for the big reveal to match the expectations and future hopes that come from the new look - sometimes it's for a new job, or to cut/hack off the pain of a breakup. But there are also those times we silently cried at the realisation we just didn't look like the photo. Or that the pain was still there despite the dead memories on the salon floor. And yet we still paid our hundreds of dollars only to walk out, go home, and find ourselves in this exact moment... crying under the shower.