Beyond words...

This past Friday my Aunt Jan (she is married to my dad's brother) sent me the email below. She has found a very inspiring way to join me in my journey. I am continually amazed at the outpouring of love and support from my friends and family, but I have to say, what my Aunt Jan has done is beyond words! I wanted to share with you her words of joy, sorrow, and encouragement because she has gone through the exact emotions I have in losing my hair and puts it into words much better I can. She is a beautiful person inside and out. And I have to say, she rocks the short hair! Enjoy!

 

 

Dear Sweet Melissa, I must tell you I have felt totally and miserably helpless and useless in your cancer treatment.  I am halfway across the country, I work 10 hrs a day, I can barely check my email at home every few days and seldom write anyone.  I read your blog and feel so many emotions about you and for you (and I always think you are entitled to have pity parties).  I try to imagine what it must be like to have such an assault upon one's body and womanhood.  I am an empathic person by nature I think, and I had childhood surgeries on my face that left me feeling mutilated and like I was gradually being cut away.  In that sense I kind of "get it", but really no one can truly know what it feels like to have breasts cut off, to suffer from chemo injected into one's body, and to face so many losses of significant proportion unless they have been there. 

 

 I have wanted very much to relate to your experience in some real way.  I wracked my brain, and the only thing I could come up with was "hair".  I know it was very hard for you to lose your hair, and I think you were so brave and fierce to take the razor to it before it fell out and to make something good of it for breast cancer charity.  As you may or may not know, I thought you have never looked more beautiful than in the picture you sent of yourself with buzzed hair and no makeup.  You looked pure and clean and like a woman warrior.  I then thought to myself I think she looks beautiful but how would I feel with very little hair?  That is when I started my experiment.  My hair was about chin length, roughly all one length.  I started going every few weeks to get it cut shorter each time to see if I would feel beautiful or if I would feel somehow less womanly, less attractive, more vulnerable.  What an interesting experiment it has turned out to be!  I found I have had all kinds of feelings, most of them uncomfortable, some of them freeing.  Each time I got it shorter, there was this pattern I'd go through of first feeling almost panicked, like I hate this, it's ugly, what will Tom think, what will my friends and co-workers think; I'd run home and wash it again and work with it trying to get it to look good; I'd finally give up, go to bed, arrive at work self-conscious the next day, and mainly deal with people looking but saying nothing, which to me, of course, meant they hated it.  I was amazed that I could feel so insecure at the age of 63.  Then I'd gradually get used to it, think about it less, and begin to accept it.  I did notice though that I was much more aware of trying to be feminine in other ways, like wearing more jewelry, buying ruffled shirts, etc.  The same sequence has happened with each haircut, although I have increasingly felt less tied to my looks and to hair in general.  It is freeing, because it is so easy to style and feels very light in the wind. I'm also getting a little more confident, like screw 'em if they don't like it.  I am sending you pictures from my last haircut which I had this afternoon after work.  My hair is now about 1 and a half to 2 inches long all over my head.  I'd like to say I feel pixie-ish and cute like an old Michelle Williams but the feeling is more Jamie Lee Curtis.  I have had some of that same initial thing tonight of it's ugly, I'm ugly, etc. but I am also beginning to feel a little like I saw you in your picture, stripped clean, nothing to hide, just who I am at the age I am, without flourish.  I will probably not go shorter, as the next level would be a buzz, and I'm not sure I could promise to hold it at that length until you catch up.  If nothing else, in addition to my own struggle, my patients might struggle.  They have already been saying what are you doing to your hair, have you done something ELSE to your hair?!  At any rate, here I am in these pictures with no make-up and less hair than I 've ever had.  You get to see it from towel to wet to "styled".   I haven't had your journey with losing hair, but I've had a journey with losing hair and have experienced all kinds of strange discomfort and weird emotions that I couldn't have predicted, so I think I "get it" a little better now.  I do know that even if someone says to me "I really like your hair" as only one person has done, I feel happy but somehow uncomforted and still left with the court of my own opinion, and that decision is mixed.  Here I will stay, working at redefining a sense of my beauty or lack of until your hair is as long as mine.  This probably means that after chemo, and after hair begins to sprout, it will take you about 3-4 mos to match me.  I am waiting on you, girl. I love you, and you are amazing.  Aunt Jan

My beautiful Aunt Jan sharing in my short hair journey!