Archive of a Breast Cancer Survivor
01.05.05
Cutting of the Hair
Let’s just say I cried hard when that pile of hair was released from
the roots of my scalp. It was horrible at first to have that hair that has
become so much a part of my identity taken from me. Funny how a thing such
as hair, or even a lack of it, can make a person. Now, in retrospect, an hour
after the hair was cut it wasn’t so bad. I mean it didn’t feel
so bad. It was okay in fact. I felt free from the thing that has identified
me as me, which really was never me in the first place. People I know walk
right by without even glancing my way—did they forget my face? Was my
hair that big that even my eyes spoke nothing because they lived under the
shadow of my ancestral DNA? God forbid. Never do I want my eyes to go unspoken,
nor my smile, which can say so much more than the locks binding me to the roots
of my cells—my ancestral cells, cancer-loving fast cells. My astrological
reading in
the morning paper told me today was to be a new day and only good things can
come my way. My astrological sign: The Scales, representing justice and balance.
It’s rather noble if you think about it. And you know, I deserve that
much—justice and balance. The morning paper said so. It must be true.