Cancer Lesson #64: Hair Today Revisited
When my hair first started to grow again, I looked like a baby ostrich. I couldn’t quite carry off the uber-chicness of extremely short hair, so I kept my head covered for the most part, usually with my baseball cap (very un-chic).
My daughter would take off the hat and rub my head like it was Buddha’s belly. I put up with it because I love her.
By the time I went back to work, the weather was getting cooler, so I started wearing wigs. I was working in the children’s section of the library, and the kids’ reaction to my hair color was sometimes quite entertaining.
For my first storytime in seven years, I felt like I needed a little extra oomph. I wore Darling Daughter’s fluorescent pink wig and promised my small charges the next time they saw me my hair would be a different color.
To follow through on that pact, I bought a new wig from a place I call “the hooker store.” (Darling Daughter didn’t appreciate the humor, but if you saw it, you’d understand.)
“Ooooh! Your hair is violet,” said one little girl, exhibiting an astonishing vocabulary and knowledge of color for a five-year-old.
Another little one said, “I like your hair dye.”
Her mother was aghast.
“How do you know it’s dye?” she asked.
“Because her hair was a different color last time I saw her,” replied her unfazed daughter.
The Starbucks barista asked if my hair color was in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
It was, I suppose, albeit unintentionally.
Even when I wore my “normal” wig, people commented. Maybe the raspberry pink streaks made me more approachable.
My favorite was midnight black with electric blue tips, also Darling Daughter’s.
She wouldn’t give it to me, though, not even when I played the cancer card.
Kids.
Keeping A-Breast: Cancer Lessons 
It was just too hot here in Australia to wear a wig, or indeed anything else on my head. I regret now that I passed up the chance to own the perfect midnight black pageboy bob, which looked fabulous, even with no eyebrows or lashes. But seriously, when would I have worn it? When I reached the sparse bumfluff stage I just shaved it again till it came in thicker. THEN, it was fabulous, thick, lush, and the most amazing silver fox colour, a short furry pelt that clung to my head and needed no product to look great. Shame that didn’t last, but I do like what I have now, which is an extremely ashy very light brown with stronger silver highlights at the front. To think I spent years and a small fortune at the hairdresser trying to achieve just this effect. Who knew cancer was the answer?
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I know what you mean. I didn’t wear wigs in the summer here, and very rarely wore a hat. It was only when the weather got cooler that I started with them. As my hair grew in, I looked like a dandelion. No joke. My hair was crazy curly, and I was happy to have it. Now, it’s pretty much back to normal, a bit thinner, a few more grays and wiry silvers sticking out, but okay. My eyelashes and brows never completely disappeared, but they also are thinner. Still, I’m sticking to my mantra: Happy to be here. Happy to have hair. And the second part is optional. 🙂
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A pink wig? Oh. My. Gosh. You really are an inspiration, you know. In more ways than one.
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I loved that wig even though it wasn’t mine. Darling Daughter had one of her senior pictures taken in it. And I still have my other wigs. Afraid to get rid of them in case I need them again.
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