"Free as my hair..." Thanks, Lady G.

    Once upon a time, there was a bald bitch named Jesse.  She got that way because of a C-word (both meanings are applicable).  One day she woke up in the hospital, looked down at her pillow and saw clumps of hair on her pillow, and said, "Oh Jesus, well that certainly is depressing."
   Thus she decided it was time to pull a Britney, and shave that shit off.  So across the hall she went with her dad and an electric razor.  It was a sad day, but as everyone had told her so many times..."it's just hair...it grows back."

"It's just hair...it grows back."  Hmmmm.  Pardon me, peeps, but are you F**KING KIDDING ME?????????????????????

DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT TAKES TO GROW A FREAKING HEAD OF HAIR????? A LONG TIME, BEYOTCHES.

Hair is a sensitive issue for people who have had cancer and lost their hair.  Many people make light of it, and make ignorant statements like the above.  But what they are not realizing is that hair is representative of identity, and to have it taken away...it's really quite traumatic.

I mean, it essentially gives you a new identity.  The identity of: "person with cancer"  "poor thing"  or the ever-popular "sucks to be her."  Once I lost my hair...I was "one of them."  

And that's when I really embraced hair as a means of expression.  It's why I got so many wigs along the way.  I'm sure you all remember 'The Ladies of Ewing's Sarcoma"  (and if you don't, here's my shameless plug where I tell you to look at my July postings)...I made the decision that I was not bald...I was simply a blank palette, that could be decorated any way I so choose.  Hair is art, if you let it be.

So yes, bald bitch Jesse got some spunky wigs and wore them with pride.  And then one day, the doctors and the annoying step-doctors (AKA med students who come in and nod in agreement with the doctors) told Jesse that she didn't have to be a big, bald, bodacious, blubbering, bully, bone-cancer bitch anymore (HOWS THAT FOR ALLITERATION, PEEPS), and set her free into the real world where you don't have to go to the hospital for a fever of 99.5.

And after 3 months, she had an entire 3 centimeters of hair. BECAUSE IT'S JUST HAIR, AND IT GROWS BACK RIGHT??????  Although it was becoming itchy, hot, and irritating to wear wigs over a thin layer of hair all the time...Jesse could not embrace her three centimeters of hair.

A few months later, her hair was 2 inches long...and people began to say, "why Jesse, you're hair is so lovely even at that short length, why don't you stop wearing wigs???"  She heard this comment daily from her peers, and wanted to agree with them...but she always came back to her wigs.  Always.

She said to herself one day.."Bitch.  What the eff is your problem.  Everyone likes your short hair, so why don't you???"  And the answer was simple: because it is not me.

I'm gonna talk in first person now, because I'm getting a migraine from trying to phrase things in third person.  Anyway, I don't feel like myself with short hair.  I had long, beautiful, thick brown hair before I lost it, and so I feel more like myself with longer hair.  I've tried changing the color...changing the style...I have a really cute bob that is great for some...but I just don't feel like me.

So I've realized fairly recently that it is becoming more and more trendy for hair to be ever-changing, different, and artistic.  Lady Gaga, (regardless of what some may think of her) is one of the gutsiest, most inspiring artists of our time, and paved the way for wigs to become a form of fashion.  Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry...so many people in popular culture use their hair as a way of expressing who they are, without limiting themselves to what's grown on their head.

 And I am not going to either.  I've decided that the thin, wispy hair that cancer is giving me (FYI, after 3 years off chemo, I'm still waiting for my hair to grow longer than my chin...BUT IT GROWS BACK RIGHT??????) is not good enough for me.  I'm gonna do whatever the hell I want with my hair...so I do.  I wear long extensions a lot, and sometimes I wear my hair in a bob with just a few shorter pieces to add volume...no matter what, I make sure I leave the house feeling beautiful.  Some people ask me why I don't just wear my real hair 24/7...and the answer is this:  I don't wear my hair for you.  I don't wear my hair so that you will like it.  I don't wear my hair to impress you.  I don't give a flying you-know-what how you feel about my hair.  I only care about what makes me feel beautiful..and what feels like me.

Before I depart, I will now depict some examples of people expressing themselves via their hair:

                                   'I like cupcakes and pink shit, is that so wrong?'

                                  'I'm not an extremely irritating child-star anymore'

                                                  'I'm crazy, please help me.'

                                  'Why wouldn't I tie my hair in a giant, lopsided bow?'



Until next time my friends,
Jesse


"I'll die living just as free as my hair."  ---Lady Gaga