🌀Mood: Reflection, Grief, Identity, Vulnerability, Courage

Today I did something I knew was coming but still wasn’t fully ready for.

I cut my hair.

Not a trim. Not a new style. The kind of cut you get when chemotherapy is about to start and you know your hair won’t survive what’s coming next.

Originally, the plan was to shave it completely before treatment began. But when I sat in the chair and looked at myself in the mirror, I realized I wasn’t quite ready for that. The stylist gently suggested leaving it a little longer, and in that moment, that felt like the right step for me. The melphalan will likely take the rest soon enough.

When she turned the chair around so I could see myself for the first time, I cried.

It wasn’t dramatic or loud. Just quiet tears as I tried to understand the person looking back at me.

I kept staring at the mirror thinking, Who is this?

And then something strange happened.

For a brief moment, I saw a version of myself I hadn’t seen in years — my freshman-year self from college. The same face, just framed differently. It was disorienting and oddly familiar at the same time.

Hair has a way of anchoring us to the version of ourselves we recognize. When it changes suddenly, the reflection can feel like a stranger.

When I left the salon, I noticed something else.

I didn’t want to look at myself.

Not the mirrors in the salon.
Not the reflection in the car window.
Not even the one in my apartment when I got home.

Another thought crept in that I wasn’t expecting.

What are people going to see when they look at me now?

For the first time, I wondered if people would see cancer before they saw me.

Up until this point, I’ve mostly still looked like myself. I could move through the world and decide who knew what I was going through.

Today felt like crossing a line where the outside of my body may begin telling the story that my doctors and I have been living with for months.

This haircut wasn’t just about hair. It was about stepping into the next phase of treatment.

Tonight I’m sitting with two emotions at the same time.

Grief and shock.

Grief for the hair I spent so many years growing, styling, and learning to manage. Hair that was part of how I recognized myself in the mirror.

And shock at how different I look without it.

When I catch my reflection now, my brain is still trying to reconcile the person I expect to see with the one that’s actually there.

Tonight I’m still getting used to this version of me.

Tomorrow I take the next step in treatment.

And while I don’t fully recognize the woman in the mirror yet, I’m starting to understand something about her.

She showed up today and did something incredibly hard.

And tomorrow, she’ll show up again.