December 27, 2001

     Back to work today - and feeling majorly exhausted tonight.  i did luck out though; the big guy gave me rides both there and back home, so i didn't have to tolerate the subway system.  

     i saw a woman in the restaurant tonight (we met friends for dinner) who's hair was as thin, if not thinner, than what my mother's was.  In fact, there was only a sparse wisp of hair across the top of her head. i wanted to go to her and tell her how to style it like my mother did hers, so that the thinness wouldn't show as much.  

     i remember how my mother combed and swept and hair sprayed each strand carefully.  She backcombed and curled and smoothed better than most hairdressers i know.  The result was a neat and tidy placement of coverage that not even a strong gust of wind could move.

     i remember how discouraged she was as the years passed and she still had to wear the same hair style - out of necessity.  She was a slave to the tins of hairspray that lacquered away the balding evidence.  She hated it.

     As i watched the woman in the restaurant i thought of all of that.  i remembered only a few hours before of standing in front of the mirror in the washroom at work and noticing the light bounce off a thin patch of my own exposed scalp.  And i carefully ran my fingernails over the area - trying to blend it away.  

     Just now i realize i've worn my own hair the same way for as long as i can remember.

     That woman in the restaurant ... she's braver than my mother was.  She's braver than me.  She doesn't try to hide.  Yet, she's probably just as unhappy - or maybe not.  Maybe she's more accepting of herself.

     Maybe she's learned to get over herself.  Hard lesson.

     But hey - mine's still passable - in the meantime there's a lot of cute wigs out there .....

                

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