There Are Two Ways Change Happens

I was spritzing hair fertilizer over my bald spots, scrutinizing the day’s damage report. The crop circle at the crown of my head is growing. And when my hair is wet, I find myself meeting parts of myself-namely my pink scalp, for the first time.

I ponder agricultural comparisons, crop circle on my head, flat as an Eastern Montana Prairie on the chest. And then there’s the hair fertilizer. It’s not really called hair fertilizer-that’s my name for this expensive concoction I bought that’s supposed to restore my silver locks to their pre-chemo glory. Which, in reality, wasn’t too glorious because of the estrogen blockers I had already started.

I have become my very own thinning shears.

I considered hopping down to Lowe’s and just getting some Miracle Gro, but the pharmacist said it’s contraindicated. I’m always angling for the frugal, el cheapo path.

Perhaps I could become a monkette. I already have the tonsure and can offer spiritual direction to the real monks. Until they heard my potty mouth, that is. So much for that idea.

Tom reminds me I have kept more hair than I’ve lost. This comforts me little. It feels like I am shedding more than a Golden Retriever in springtime and the evidence of it is sprinkled everywhere.

It makes for a fun parlor trick. I can tell strangers in the Trader Joe’s line that I am so frustrated, I just feel like pulling my hair out-and then comb my fingers through my hair and watch their expression while my hair wafts like dandelion fluff over the Windmill cookies in my cart. Nah. That would be nasty, especially if chemo-ized hair landed in the produce.

My soliloquy continues as I scrutinize my eyelashes. Yup. Upper ones are hanging in there. Lower ones have fled the scene. My eyebrows are still mostly present and accounted for. It’s it too much to hope for that they selectively shed into a lovely, just-waxed shape?

There are some victories to celebrate. The demon wire whisker is still gone. May it never return. Post-menopausal mustache-departed. Shave underarms and legs? Nope, not no mo. Though I suspect they are staging a robust encore appearance. No hair fertilizer for these body parts.

Will clumps fall out today? Or just the ongoing hair a little thar a little?

I’m just 8 days past my final chemo and shedding usually kicks in around day 15. But so far, I have had no dramatic shedding moments like some of my dear pink sister friends.

The Paxman Cooling cap has really made a difference for me. They claim about 70% of women can keep about 50% of their hair. Works for me.

When one goes through chemotherapy, the hairscape-or the lack thereof-is a kaleidoscope of change, minus the pretty mosaics.

It’s only part of the changes foisted on your body. A tongue that turns to a block of wood and hurricane-force winds churning in the stomach. (And I advise you to get upwind when said wind finds its not-so-sweet release.)

And then there are other changes that put you on high alert. My God, is that just a mole? Is the headache metastases?

Change. Like it or not, it is here to stay. You never step into the same river twice, right?

Change comes in two forms- a force from the outside, think Wile E. Coyote in a steamroller, or…a fucking cancer diagnosis. This is all under the “shit happens” category and there is little we can do about it.

My experience has been this sort of change is more often than not unpleasant, though I am open to the universe contradicting me so I can win the lottery and never worry about finances again.

The other type of change comes from a force from within you. You decide to change something. Perhaps you get a wild hair and want to paint your living room fuchsia. You can do that. You decide and change.

That sort of change is easy sqeasy.

The deeper, more difficult change is when we decide to change ourselves.

This is the work of a lifetime.

I didn’t choose breast cancer. I didn’t choose to have the catalytic convertor stolen out from under my nose. I didn’t choose a front-end loader of other shitty things to be dropped on my doorstep.

But there it is.

Viktor Frankl reminds us that when life becomes a shitshow, there remains one untouchable source of empowerment: your ability to choose.

I can choose my attitude. I can choose my response. During unhappy times, I can choose to be happy. (Mind you, I’m not talking la-la-la, I can’t HEAR you, denial.)

I can choose a healthier diet. I can choose to take steps toward the life I’ve dreamed of (but never attain because I was so busy following a societal script). I can choose to sever toxic relationships and cultivate the loving ones.

I chose to go through chemotherapy even though it sucked because I learned it would lessen the chances of a recurrence of cancer.

Taking back my power after feeling like the steamroller has flattened me feels good.

Change comes from the outside or from within.

Theresa’s mangled version of the Serenity Prayer: Accept what I cannot change, and change what I can (hello, hair fertilizer). And yes, wisdom to know the difference.

(Here’s a freebie for you: You cannot change another person.)

I can’t do much about my hair right now beyond trusting it will grow back. But I can choose to be okay with my little old lady head of hair.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of other things I can change.

How about you?

Theresa Winn is a certified life coach and spiritual director. She is busy living and working on her next book, “Bye-Bye Boobs-Breast Cancer, Boobectomies and Badassery”. My writing is reader supported -Consider buying me a coffee.