The Transformative Power of Hair
Yesterday I had my hair cut and bleached. The cutting part is funny, because it is soooo short, but what we're doing is trying to get the top to grow enough so that I can start growing the whole thing. I'd rather not grow the sides at the same rate and start to look like a dandelion - crazy me, I know!
My hair has starting curling, which is new for me. I've always had stick-straight hair that required harsh chemicals if it was going to hold a curl. Thank goodness I stopped doing perms over a decade ago. But now it's starting to act out and curl in funky directions of its own accord. I knew that might happen as hair often comes back curly after chemotherapy, but nonetheless, it's WEIRD.
I have no idea what it's going to do and what I will look like. There's no point in imagining the look I want to grow into, because who knows what my HAIR has in mind? I just have to wait and see, making decisions as new things develop...which has become, I think, a tremendous learning experience for me.
You see, I am a planner, through and through. I have a very analytical mind and a shrewd ability to predict potential issues and visualize the most prudent path. I could have had a career in failure analysis!
My skills have served me well throughout my life and yet at the same time they have limited me. I over-plan. I decide something is unlikely to work before I take a first step. I commit to an itinerary that doesn't allow for the serendipity of side trips. Mostly, I forget to make room for magic and providence. I forget that I am a creature of synchronicity, inspiration, and free-flowing ideas. In short, I hold myself back.
What does my hair have to do with this? Well, I won't say that I had fabulous hair before chemo, but I had exactly the hair I wanted: extra long, straight, glossy brunette hair with a strong purple cast. Every time I'd go to the hairstylist, she'd ask what we were doing today and I'd tell her the same thing as before, because I LIKED the same thing. I wasn't done with it!
Then chemotherapy came along and I lost all that hair. In the course of wearing 23 different wigs, I learned that nature may not have guessed right on my hair color, because light blonde and lilac were the prettiest things I had ever worn. When my hair grew back, I bleached it because...well...just to see what happened. And now I'm opening my mind to the idea that maybe I'll be a blonde, what the heck? Unless something else comes along. Maybe I'll have curls, maybe a bob...and I'm not planning what will happen next. In a completely uncharacteristic turn, I am not thinking ahead.
Somehow this has spread to the rest of my life. As I close down my small business consultancy and launch new ventures, I realize I'm approaching it very differently than before. Right now, I have ideas, intentions, and hopes. I am very aware that I will need to experiment to see what works-not just what others like, which is what I worried about before, but to see what I like. I am going to throw things out into the open ring and watch what happens. There's a confidence inside that I didn't have before, a confidence that as challenges and opportunities come up, I'll make the right decisions. The most startling thing is that I'm not trying to make the decisions in advance.
Honestly, I think this all started with the hair! Who knew?
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