I'm taking it back. I hate how my hair looks. I'm supposed to be grateful to even have it, but I hate it. I would shave it off again if I wouldn't have to go through this awful stage again.
When I look in the mirror or at a photo of me now, I see a very specific photo from my past. It was taken at some time when I was in junior high. I had just gotten a new haircut - just like Dorothy Hamill - and seemed pretty proud of my new hair. I'm wearing some sort of a pantsuit that my mother made for me, sitting in a green velvet chair in my parents' living room, looking kind of saucy, like "like my new haircut?" I did, obviously.
The memory that always follows that one, that makes my skin crawl and gives me chills even today, is at the junior high lunch table, with the other Ws through Zs (assigned seating, yay). The Ws through Zs were talking about Sarah and her goofy new haircut "and that duck tail!" either not realizing or not caring that said haircut was sitting at the end of the table, trying to make herself small so no one would notice her. I don't remember if they did notice me. I don't remember feeling like there was any malice in what they were saying; I just remember wishing that I could be anywhere else with my ugly hair.
There's an awesome postscript to that story, too: The night before one of our class reunions, a bunch of classmates and I found ourselves in one classmate's garage/party room. It was raining out, so we were all crowded at tables and at the bar. We were far enough from high school that even I was having fun, seeing people I remembered and trading stories. It was pretty startling, then, to hear a conversation to one side of me -- it was one of those Ws through Zs and another couple of my elementary/junior high school classmates, talking about my awful Dorothy Hamill haircut "and that duck tail!"
This time, my old classmate realized what she was saying, and quickly apologized or said something regretful. I don't really remember, because Jesus H., how did I manage to end up a junior high lame weirdo with a bad haircut at my 15th high school class reunion?
Writing this today, a couple months short of my 50th birthday, still makes me squirm. It makes me want to make myself small, not get in anybody's way -- maybe no one will notice me.
Today, I have short, curly hair. It's a sign that I'm done with chemotherapy, that I've beat cancer. I would fucking shave it all off to not feel like that ugly junior high kid. I'm not fooling anybody.
