My hair is getting too long for the little Mohawk, but apparently not long enough to have another plan.
I keep trying to figure out which direction to push it. Forward? Over? Does this part look intentional, or does it look like I slept on it and gave up?
There’s enough hair to wake up with bedhead now. There isn’t necessarily enough to fix it.
And as ridiculous as that sounds, some days it really gets to me.
People talk about losing your hair during cancer treatment. The shaving, the handfuls coming out, the first time you see yourself bald. Those moments deserve the attention they get.
But growing it back comes with its own weird relationship with the mirror.
Everybody is excited to see it coming in. “Look at all that hair!” And I know they mean it lovingly. I’m watching it, too. Checking the sides. Trying to decide whether anything has actually changed since yesterday.
I want it to grow.
I also want to like how I look while it does.
That second part has been harder.
There’s the fuzzy stage. The sticking-straight-up stage. The stage where the back seems to be pursuing a completely different hairstyle than the front. You finally figure out how to make it look decent, and then it grows another tiny bit and the whole arrangement falls apart.
Do you trim it so it has a shape? Leave it alone because you’ve waited so long for every bit of length? How much product can you put in two inches of hair before you need to admit this isn’t working?
It’s funny until you’re trying to get dressed and suddenly nothing feels right.
You put on an outfit you normally like. Change the earrings. Try a little makeup. Stand back.
Still don’t feel like yourself.
Then you feel shallow for letting your hair affect you this much, because there are obviously bigger things happening.
I have cancer. I am very aware there are bigger things happening. I would still like to get ready without having a small identity crisis in the bathroom.
Sometimes I don’t feel feminine, and I hate admitting that because I can already hear the reassurance.
Women can be beautiful with short hair. Bald women can be feminine. Hair doesn’t determine womanhood.
I know. I can look at another woman with a shaved head or a pixie cut and think she looks incredible.
Then I look at myself and miss having choices.
I miss being able to decide what kind of hair day I’m having. Being able to put it up, wear it down, curl it, hide behind it a little. I miss getting dressed and having the outside match how I wanted to feel.
There’s a difference between choosing a short haircut because you love it and trying to feel comfortable in one you arrived at through treatment.
Right now, I’m working with what has grown. Some days I like it. Some days I can make it feel like me. Other days I’m tired of trying to convince myself I love a stage I’m mostly just waiting to get through.
And hair growth comes with assumptions, too.
People see it coming back and it can look like everything else must be getting better along with it. Meanwhile, I’m still dealing with cancer, still tired, still trying to feel at home in a body that has changed in ways I never asked for.
The hair is one visible piece of all that. It’s the piece sticking up when I’m already having a rough morning.
I don’t need to turn every awkward length into a lesson about confidence. Sometimes I just want to complain about the back of my head and have somebody understand.
So yes, I’m glad it’s growing.
I’m also impatient. I miss my hair. I miss feeling feminine without having to work so hard at it.
For now, I’m standing in the mirror, pushing it in another direction, trying again.
The back still has its own plans.
If you’re somewhere in this awkward stage too, you have company. You can appreciate every bit of new growth and still miss what you had. You don’t owe anybody a confidence speech about it.
That’s why I keep writing here. Because so much of living with cancer happens outside the appointments, in moments we don’t always know how to explain.
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Thank you for reading, sharing, and making room for the parts of cancer that don’t fit neatly into a health update.
With love,
Izzy & Mojo 🖤
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