This has been a really great week for me, I finally got a proper haircut and had my hair colored for the first time in over a year. Yes, I am vain. Yes my hair is really important to me. But I am back to me. I feel happy again.
Throughout this entire fucked up experience of my life, I realized that my hair is a protective shield for me. It makes me feel whole and normal. It makes me feel good and pretty. Everyone wants to feel pretty. I will forever be fortunate to Zack and my parents for the Cold Caps, and Gavin my Cold Capper. Without that “shield,” I don’t think that my chemotherapy treatments would have been somewhat easier not that they were easy in any way. My hair made me feel like I could face the world day in and day out, and allow me to not be super depressed like I wanted to be. To be able to go on with my daily life and not look super cancery was a really big deal.
For some reason as soon as I saw myself in the mirror in my car yesterday after I left the salon, I started to cry. I cried happy tears but a massive wave of emotion washed over me. I had a moment of clarity- which comes and goes as a cancer survivor- that I really had cancer. I wasn’t me for the 10 months or so of my life. I was a person in an alternate reality battling a horrible bad guy, well billions of bad guy cells. It was an insane feeling that is still with me this morning. But I beat it. I am here. As my hairdresser said yesterday, I’m glad I didn’t die. Not like that was EVER a choice.
I am a little emotional today, a little sentimental and solemn. That’s ok. As a survivor we are granted those moments of sadness. I “rise up” and rise up a thousand times again. I fight for me, my family and you. I am here and not going anywhere. It is my mission to make a difference now, with your help we can do it.
So ya, I am glad I didn’t die. Now donate to my walk. Same old Jessie, just better and more badass 🙂
xo,
Jessie
http://www.infokomen.org/site/TRfr_id=6762&pg=personal&px=2297615