Hair Diaries

My hair has always been the bane of my existence. I spent much of my life wishing it could be different — straight and shiny, or tousled and wavy, or easy and pliable — anything but kinky and frizzy. For years I labored at making this wish a reality. 

In middle school, I awoke at 6 a.m. to blow out my hair (this was back in the day, before the miraculous invention of the flat iron). I pulled section after section taut with a giant round brush and singed each with an extremely hot blast from my Conair. It was so taxing, I had to take breaks. Every 10 minutes I'd sit on the bathtub ledge, panting and fanning myself. Then I'd switch the brush to my left hand to give the other a rest, inhale deeply and pick up where I left off. 

Still, I could never achieve the polished look I wanted. My efforts produced a poofy and fried effect — and the walk to school in the dewy morning air undid all my hard work. By the time I arrived, my hair had shrunk two inches and had grown exponentially in diameter. Eventually, I discovered a solution to this problem: I woke up a half hour earlier, ratcheted up the heat on the Conair, and stuffed my straightened hair into my grandfather's wool beret. Once safely inside the school, where the air was free of humidity and other harmful elements of the outdoors, I removed the cap and let my lustrous hair flow.

I continued these machinations until ninth grade when I could no longer get out of bed before sunrise. I decided I needed a lower maintenance hair style — one that didn't require a heating pad and elevation to treat overuse injury in my arm. A mullet was the answer. It was short enough on the top and sides to reduce my blow drying time by half and lengthy enough in the back to be considered long hair. Genius! 

The mullet is the reason there are no photographs of me from ninth to 12th grade. I destroyed them all — lit them on fire and watched them burn to ash — except for possibly two that my mother hid. This is only a rumor … I have never actually seen them, which, I believe, was part of her plan.

In the '90s, I tried a number of styles: teased curls, long with bangs, short with bangs, a bob, "the Rachel." These were mostly awful, too, because I hadn't yet come to terms with a painful truth. My hair defied styling. The only way to wear it was curly, in long layers.

By the time I realized this, I was in my late 20s. While I began enjoying slightly better hair days, cultivating an attractive look wasn't any less arduous. Creating the right curl – one that wasn't too coiled – and fighting frizz took a lot of toil. Through trial and error and thousands of dollars spent on mousses, gels, pomades, oils, smoothers and hairsprays, I finally got it almost right — or at least as good as it was going to get. If only my hair could be straight and shiny, or tousled and wavy, or easy and pliable …  

Ironically, for the entire month leading up to chemo, my hair looked fabulous – every day. It was the perfect length with loose, bouncy ringlets. I wondered why life was so cruel. Why when I was about to lose all my hair was it finally cooperating?

Now that I'm completely bald I understand that my hair didn't suddenly become something it never was. I appreciated it at last. Because having a full head of hair, no matter how unruly, shouldn't be taken for granted.

Or, maybe my hair was never the problem. Maybe it's my eyes (too dark) or my complexion (too yellow with astronomical pores). Perhaps I should use my newly gained hair primping time to lighten and brighten my face. Or maybe I should save myself a lot of time, energy and money and simply be grateful for the skin I'm in.