Hair Pt. IV: The Rizzo

In my dreams I still have hair. 

Phantom curls rest heavy on my shoulders.

In my dreams I still toss them off to one side and sweep the stragglers behind my ear.

Fingertips massage my scalp through tangled knots

slowly pressing out the soreness of a hair-tie fist.

In my dreams a dark curtain still falls when I lean down.

Two faces in quiet seclusion.

Dreaming.

I wrote that in my notes app years ago when chemo left me bald and longing for my curls.  

There is so much to be said for how hair is a part of identity, especially for women, and especially for me.

I cannot truly express the feeling of watching it grow back after cancer. 

There was fear that my hair would not grow back curly at all, after an entire life spent with curly hair as my main physical identifier. There was pride when people said it grew back thicker and faster than other cancer patients'. There was excitement and plain old vanity at not being bald anymore. And guilt at finally being out of treatment for long enough to see my hair again, while other friends and family have not been so fortunate.

All I wanted for the last three years was to be able to pile my curls up on top of my head in a messy bun the way I used to. And then one day recently, finally — FINALLY — I found I could.

When I did, I stared in the mirror, shocked to see a version of myself that hadn’t existed for years. 

Hello.

I knew her. ‘Brenna Prime’. The original version of myself with the signature bun she wore all through middle school, high school, and college. She looks the way I appear in my friends' memories of me, even the default image of myself in my own head. 

I was surprised to see her after so long. She looked surprised to be there, too.

The other emotions I felt were harder to place. Excited? Accomplished? Bitter? 

I cocked my head to the side, examining her. She did the same to me.

I both recognized her and didn’t. The bun formed the right shape in my reflection, so did the few strands at my neck that were too short and stubborn to be scooped up with the rest. I still wore glasses on the same round face. Behind them, this girl had thick eyebrows like I used to, and long dark eyelashes. 

But her eyes were all wrong. Wide in shock, but older than they should be. They held too much.

It was like looking into the past at someone else. This girl didn’t belong here. She was out of time.

So much had changed me in the last few years, it seemed physically impossible that I could look like I did before cancer. Before the pandemic, before I got my cat, Trouble. Before, before, before...

I am decidedly ‘after' now.

I suppose that made me jealous. If only I could pick up my life again back where this girl was. If I could take a different path than the road to cancer, as if there were an alternate path at all. If there were, and if I had taken it — would I still look like that version of myself with long frizzy hair? 

If, If, If.

Reflexively, a feeling almost like disgust started to swell in me the longer I looked in the mirror.

I had forgotten — I was so self-critical when I looked like this. I hadn’t realized how much progress I had been making in therapy, and in growing up in general, until I looked at this person and was repulsed by her. I had trained myself to not like this reflection.

That made me sad. She didn’t deserve that reaction. She really isn’t nearly as ugly as I spent all those adolescent years telling her she was. 

Then I remembered I spent a lot of time telling that to the bald girl, too, back when she was the one who lived in my reflection.

Feeling ugly during cancer is more than simple vanity. It is lost identity, tangible proof of the ugliness happening inside your body. You feel ugly inside, and then you look in the mirror and see a hairless head and puffy face and acne from the steroids you have to take, and you have to conclude the ugly spread to the outside, too.

I tried hard to appreciate my body and praise it for being strong and fighting off a deadly disease, rather than the traitor that got that disease in the first place.

And there were moments throughout the past few years when I did feel truly beautiful. Wearing my purple wig out to pop punk concerts, when strangers complimented how great it looked with my purple lipstick. Post-treatment, when I kicked ass giving an important work presentation with a shaved head. Dressed up at a gala, when a new and dear friend unveiled an art piece inspired by me.

But to be honest, the majority of the time I avoided looking in the mirror.

So when I looked in the mirror a few weeks ago and saw the girl with the messy bun — the girl I used to be — I didn't know how to greet her.

********

A few months ago I met a new person in the mirror, one I had never seen before. She had hair shorter than I ever would have been brave enough to cut, shaped almost like a mullet. Sharper curls poked over her ears, a perfect frame for dangling earrings. Bangs reached down her forehead just enough to remind you they were there. 

She looked so cool. Confident. Punk rock. Hot. Powerful. In control. Joan Jett. Rizzo from Grease.  

I had never looked like this. And yet this style borne out of necessity — to shape my hair as it grew back quickly and unevenly— seemed to fit me so naturally.

A few weeks later, my sister texted:

random but u should keep ur short hair for a little you look like a bad bitch & i feel like u look like the most urself than u have in years

I saw her in person and she told me I looked like my true self, "like your outside matches your inside.”

A compliment like that sticks for a long time. And who better to know my true self than my sister? 

My outside matched my inside.

********

Two reflections stood in my mind’s eye and offered a choice — do I keep growing my hair out or do I cut it short again?

Cutting my hair felt like a very significant choice. After years of no long curls when I wanted them so badly, how could I willingly cut them all off? And what if it was a jinx? What if cancer came back, and chemo came back, and the time I could have had with my hair long again was wasted having it short?

But then, I felt so confident and cool when my hair was short. It was bold and different and I pulled it off, and that is so exciting! What would it be like to choose that style out of total free will rather than simply making the best of the little hair I had grown back?

What would it mean to choose the person I became after cancer over the blissfully ignorant and familiar person I was before?

I spent weeks debating.

I have an upcoming trip to Greece at the end of the summer. I had pictured myself there with long, beautiful curls blowing in the wind. Dark locks curled tight with the salt water, growing big with humidity. Imagine me sitting on a rooftop, tan and with a glass of wine, curls spilling over my shoulders as I look out from the island.

But then, imagine me with short, razor-cut curls. A patterned kerchief as a makeshift headband twining between them. Dangling earrings on full display. Imagine me light and free despite the 90+ degree heat. A hot breeze ruffling through bangs and cooling the sweat on my forehead and the back of my neck.

I went through my phone looking for a reference picture of myself with short hair so I could compare it to the girl with the bun, who was still watching me from the mirror.

As I scrolled through selfie after selfie, I noticed I had taken more photos of myself than maybe ever this past spring. Images of me when the haircut was still fresh, walking to work, going for a night out, posing with Trouble. You could tell I was really feeling myself and confident in a way that doesn't usually read out through a photo.

I watched the progression of time through my camera roll as my hair slowly grew longer and longer. As it did, I noticed that the frequency of selfies dropped dramatically the longer it got. 

This era of shameless selfies was proof to me that I truly had loved having my hair short. I felt attractive on a consistent basis, enough to feel compelled to stop and take photo evidence over and over. And more than just her hair, I could tell that version of me really loved herself, too.

I wanted to be her again.

Before I could lose my nerve, I texted my hair girl that I wanted ‘The Rizzo’

********

Seeing piles of wet curls left on the salon floor shocked me. It was a familiar sight, but one I hadn’t seen in four years. I simply wasn’t ready for how emotional it made me. I didn’t understand how it would affect me to willingly chop off all the hair I spent YEARS growing back. I saw all that time and growth reduced to clumps of hair spread all over the floor, waiting to be thrown in the trash. 

the carnage

Not to mention, the last time I saw that much of my hair on the ground was when I shaved it during chemo.

I turned away and blinked a few times until the blurry face in the mirror became clear again. 

Hello.

Here was a friend I recognized. One that I hadn’t hung out with in a while, but one who I shared secrets with and who knew me on a deeper level than the girl I used to be.

She had short, choppy curls that she tentatively ran a hand through. When she did, I felt lighter.

This girl in the mirror wasn’t naive like the other had been, but nor was she haunted. If anything, she looked ready. For battle, for adventure, for mischief-making —  it didn’t seem like it mattered to her. 

I spun in the salon chair and admired her from all angles.

Let’s go. 

She grinned back at me.

********

Long-hair Brenna is not gone forever, I hope. But ‘Brenna Prime’ is. The simple truth is I would rather be who I am now, having gone through cancer, than the past version of me who didn’t.

That is not to say I’m ‘grateful’ for cancer — anyone who says that is selling something, and maybe to themselves. But for the most part, I like myself. And that’s not because of cancer, but because of the person I saw myself be to survive it. 

I learned I am resilient. I am brave. I can handle more than I thought I could. I can be more vulnerable and trusting than I thought I could. I can make the most of something awful. 

And this badass haircut reminds me that I am that person after cancer, too.