The Underlying Meaning of a Haircut and Style (Istanbul)

Stupid cool was always really meant to be a fun, somewhat travel-oriented blog, so I have tried to keep cancer out of it.

But as a two time cancer survivor having trouble with what my oncologist calls survivorship perhaps denying this element of me exists by excluding it from my writing is an impediment to my moving on.

The view of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul that I basically
ignored while reading a magazine and getting my haircut.

Today, overlooking the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, I had my hair cut. A mundane experience for most, for me, it was one conflict. For all of my life, I have been the girl with very long hair. 

All of my life until cancer.

Cancer took my hair three times. First, I donated it to my aunt who ultimately died of cancer. Then I lost it myself to chemotherapy. It was right around the time I had a nice bob again that cancer resurfaced and took it once again.

My hair has since grown back, surprisingly resilient, healthy and lush. But this time it is curly, curly, curly.

I have what is known in cancer circles as “chemo-curl.” My last chemotherapy regiment results in super curly hair.

As someone who has always had board straight hair, these curls were mystifying, messy and enigmatic.

I don’t mind them, they just seem foreign.

Today, having my hair cut, when all I really want is it long, seemed a bit of an odd choice. But this curly enigma, I just don’t know what to do with it.

The stylist said, for best results, he would straighten it to cut it. OK, I thought. I really didn’t care.

So after an hour of washing, and straightening and cutting and styling, while I was engrossed in a magazine I would be embarrassed to even admit to reading….

I 

looked

up.

And my eyes absolutely welled with tears, and tittering on overflowing, I hid them from the stylist who would no doubt be horrified that his diligent, artistic, perfect haircut and style had reduced me to gushing tears.

In the mirror, reflecting back at me, with board straight hair, was my image, in perfect health, cancer-free.

Cool: Seeing myself in the mirror and thinking I look the image of perfect health.

Stupid: The profound, ever present, terrorizing fear that it is just “a look” like a picture snapped in a moment in time, before cancer.

Stupid: What I have come to call, "Cancer PTSD," which somehow morphed a simple haircut into a traumatic reminder of two years of cancer.

Wonderful: Living in an environment, ship life, where true friends are just a few minutes’ walk away. A thank you to Katherine Henderson, my shipmate, who I ran crying to after my haircut.