Hi all,
I sit here at the moment with a nice cowpat of henna on my 1 cm hair - after doing it for thirty years to a waist-length mane, my! it was a simple procedure! Like Fizbix, I have an enormous head. My son inherited it and he was monitored for his first six months because they suspected hydrocephaly (‘waterhead’ as it is in Finnish, lovely), but when he was considered old enough for a scan of some sort, that worry was put to bed. Personally, I knew it was rubbish, he comes from a long line of cannonball heads & after the doc had cleared baby he turned to me, measured my head and told me that I was the one who might have a problem - a mild Finnish joke.
Cutting it all off exposed truly bulging cheek bones & a strong jaw (with a pendulous bit hanging from it like a small soft pillow on a clothes line) - a bit butch, but my female university colleagues are 100% in favour: I look like they do, now - very feminist. NOT a label I’ve ever accepted; I KNOW women are better than men in every way. Still, their approval was a bit of a boost; as Fizbix says, AJ, it may be that your discontent with your intelligent high forehead (who wants a low, simian one like an ape?) may be something purely between you and your mirror. Think Elizabeth I & the actresses who have played her since, all of whom had to go through painful depilation to achieve the look.
Though it’s true that it was hard facing the world, naked-faced for the first time. I wore a scarf for the first few days but have now got used to it. This is ‘who I am’ - at least for the moment.
Still, I am taking a bunch of students to the wholesaler to direct their foodbuying for the anthropology spring party this morning & thought that ‘chestnutting’ the whitish temples might give them less of a fright. (Normally I also direct the cooking for this annual affair - as an ex-restaurant/catering company owner - but not this year. I wish I could be a fly on the wall to see how a handful of non-professionals handle serving a 3-course, sit-down dinner for 80, but I’m not great in the evenings and am going to pass on the event).
Like Fizbix, I have also dug out some flashy earrings & when I am meeting friends I layer on eye makeup, as I have not since my twenties, to draw attention to them. It’s a ‘look’ - and who’s to say it’s not actually from free choice?
By the way Fizbix, you’re about where I am on Tax - but I’ve forgotten if you had FEC first? I’ve no sign of hair loss yet; my eyelashes are shorter and thinner than when I last regularly used mascara, but as I started with it the day before chemo, I can’t blame it on that. FEC is the big hair-dispenser, my onc tells me. As for the age thing - I’m 50, and though the ravages of middle-age didn’t really start to become apparent until after I was about 45, I’ve had that little bit longer than you to get used to the fact. I don’t think that now is the best time to be digging out old photographs, however, and don’t.
Love to all, M-L