Lately I’ve gotten this question a lot, so I just want to get this out there.

No, I am not planning to keep the pixie cut.

Thank you for those of you who think it really suits me, and brings out my eyes and all of that but when I look at the pixie in the mirror I see one thing.

Cancer.

I tried to explain it to a friend this weekend, but to me it’s almost like I have a scar on my face. Would anyone expect me to keep that if I had the choice to let it fade away? No? I didn’t think so.

Is there a chance that I’ll go back to short hair at some point in the future? Sure. But I’m not holding my breath.

For one thing, I may have always wanted curly hair growing up, but in my hair’s current state, it’s like having perma-bed-head.  Since I had fairly straight hair pre-chemo, I just don’t quite know how to deal with it, other than getting it wet to see if it will at least curl all in one direction.  And let’s face it, I’m too lazy to get my hair cut every few weeks to keep it just so.

Thing two is about control.  Yes, I know that I CHOSE the route that meant my hair fell out. But I didn’t pick needing chemo in the first place.  So I will grow my hair to where I want it, and this make decisions from there.

But the biggest reason is sheer vanity, mixed with more than a little stubborn pride.

As I said a couple of months ago, I am currently wearing more lipstick and eyeliner than I have ever before in my life.  So maybe that’s why the pixie makes my eyes pop. Because I’m practically tattooing on my eyeliner every morning, and now that my lashes are less stubby, I’m pretty liberal with the mascara too.  Eyeshadow? Sure. And I hardly leave my bedroom, let alone the house, without blush.

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I currently HATE my breasts.  They were annoying, frustrating, all-sorts-of-ings when they were ginormous. But they were mine.  I came from a long line of busty women, on both sides of my family.  Even when I was at my thinnest, I was an FF cup. It was just a part of who I was from when I hit puberty. And although I’d always wanted to get reduced down to a D or so one day, that’s a lot different than waking up from surgery with scars all of the way across my chest and something that had been so much a part of me just gone.

When I graduated High School, and subsequently when I met my husband that fall, if I leaned my head back, I could sit on my hair.

It’s been a LONG time since it had been that long, but it’s been even longer since I couldn’t at least make little pigtails.

And although when I saw my doc this week she reassured me that the oblong lumps I’m currently sporting will settle forward and round themselves out as the swelling goes down, it’s also going to be at least 3 months before I’m allowed to wear pretty underwire bras, that will hold the girls into a shape that I’m used to. She also said she may do some more rounding when I have my next surgery in 3 months. But I’m really hoping that I don’t need anything more than tiny adjustments and adding the nipples.  I hate that I’m planning when we can take my son to Boston for the first time around surgical plans.

Don’t get me wrong. I still think I did the right thing. I would rather have the pancake-y oblong things than cancer. Or than one K and the other gone.

But it doesn’t mean that any of this is easy, or that I feel like anything about me is cute right now.

And no matter how often someone else SAYS the pixie is cute, it doesn’t mean that I believe it. I do believe that YOU believe it, if that helps at all.  But I’ve had 39 years of practice saying some pretty shitty things about myself in my head. Even if I hadn’t undergone such a big physical change, I wouldn’t be able to exorcize those demons overnight.  And as I said last month, I know for a fact that I have to own my own happy thoughts to be able to fly. It’s not something anyone else, no matter how much they love me or may want to, can do for me.

So I paint my toes and my fingers, and my eyes and lips, wear dangly earrings, carry a hot pink KSNY bag, wear all of the pink and floral girly things that I already owned, and continue to fight the emotional battle that I likely ignored while I was fighting the physical one.

From Feb 15 Fuzzy Friday

To April 26 Fluffy Friday