Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

On any given day we can look back to where we were a year prior. This need not wait until New Years, a birthday, or any other calendar time marker. Every day belongs to a place in time where you were a year ago. Well, a year ago I was freaking the F out because out of NOWHERE I lost eight inches of my hair. It occurred within six weeks, start to finish. On thanksgiving it was long and luxurious. Right after that it started falling out and weakening, and by mid December it  was significantly lacking. The selfies I took on my way out the door to the club on New Years were alarming. I was baffled. What happened???

I was devastated. Having lost two thirds of my hair in high school due to a vicious case of psoriasis on my head, hair is a major topic for me. That time it took four long years to grow back. Like this time, back then it was ALL I thought about. All I'd look at on other girls. What I'd maniacally stare at in the pages of magazines. I was hair obsessed. We tend to fixate on what we are lacking, and so my brain was tuned to the hair channel 24/7. It was excruciating, being in the throes of adolescence. I had bald spots that I'd strategically cover. Damn, it was depressing. I never thought I'd have to go through that again.

Then I went through the typical post baby hair loss four times, but everyone does. It's so hard collecting drain piles while feeling helpless. So much of a woman's vanity is tied to our hair. For better or worse, we care a lot about our manes. This time around, just as I was feeling ready to soon explore the dating world, I was frantic. I was all set to embrace my soon to be single status and this derailed that. I had worked so incredibly hard to make sense of the next chapter of my life, had a positive attitude, and was in the right frame of mind. I felt robbed of a fresh start. The first question  anyone asks during hair loss is "are you stressed?" Um, no, I really wasn't. I was truly in a place of peace and contentment. My divorce wasn't public, and my ex and I were going through it together in a unified manner. It was the least stressed I'd been in a very long time. However, the several doctors I cried to all said that it takes the body six months to process emotional trauma. Bingo. My hair breakage was exactly six months after the summer, a period of tremendous anguish. I was certain this was the result of something massively internal. I know my body well. Living with ulcerative colitis since I'm 11, which is triggered by stress, seasonal shifts, and hormonal zig zags (pregnancy and post pregnancy), I've learned how to read my body's signals and reactions. Breaking eight inches of hair in just a few weeks had very little to do with the hair itself. It was greater than that.

It's very scary when we are faced with having no control over our lives. At a time when I finally felt in the driver's seat, the bus was once again forgetting to pick me up. My yoga teacher told me it's just external and doesn't matter. Um... I'm not nearly as evolved as her. IT KINDA MATTERED😫. I wanted my haaaaaiiiiiiirrrrrr😢.  I frantically did all sorts of research on hair growth. I'm by nature a very proactive person. I react. Strongly. I believe in proactively solving what I can. I can dwell, mull, dissect, and rehash with the best of em (a habit I'm unlearning since it traps us in the past) but I respond. I'm like this by nature, but it's also a result of my entire life; since childhood I've been on my own emotionally in every way. I've had to make things happen for myself. I have always had to be my own safety net. It's why I'm good in a crisis. It's why I can be that safety net for others. We provide for others what we ourselves lacked.  Shitty circumstances force us to rise to the occasion. Such as this one. I'd never googled this much in my life. I found all these Indian hair gurus on You Tube. Those women know what's up; their hair is their livelihood. The best wigs come from that part of the world. They are hair magicians, and I sought their secrets. I want to share with you some of what seemed to be consistent among the women I found. There are many hair bloggers, You Tubers, and experts from all over. I didn't spend too much time looking far and wide, I had no patience for that. I jumped on the first few I saw who felt right to me. I didn't question anything they said, from putting curry in my hair,  to all the vitamins I've since taken religiously, to rubbing my fingers together to activate stem cells in my head. My daughter laughed at the last one. She said when she did it she just got a headache. Aha! It caused some kind of reaction! All they said was law.

I dutifully listened, determined to expedite the restoration of my mane. The vitamins that they all seemed to swear by are: folic acid, B 12, A, E, D, and iron, which I take anyway. I also found VIVISCAL in my research and take that too. Why not throw in Biotin? Twice weekly I made a mixture of various oils and spices and slept in it. Sexy. At first I followed exact measurements but now once a week I'll make my own concoction. The ingredients in the hair mask varied, but the common ones were coconut oil, castor oil, avocado oil, curry powder, mustard powder, and peppermint oil. I also used this Indian plant powder my friend CR got me from her yoga teacher. As I said, I was all in. Today I'll throw in an egg for protein, honey as a humectant, and occasionally a banana for moisture. I no longer sleep in the mask, which was so gross, but I'll keep it in for an hour. It's insanely nourishing. Nothing grows if its not healthy. My hair was broken and uneven, but I had to restore its health if there was going to be any movement in the right direction. I also have myself twice daily head massages to stimulate the follicles.

The most important thing I learned from this was to increase yoga. Until then I'd been doing once a week private healing sessions. Needing to increase blood flow to my head by being upside down was essential. Makes sense, but a yoga class is typically an hour and fifteen minutes, a hard time block to commit to several times a week. I've never been an early riser, but there was this 6:15!!!! Sunrise class that would not cut into the rest of my day. The only way to force myself out of bed at that ungodly hour was to stop going to bed so late. The only way to stop going to bed so late was to put down my stupid phone. Basically, I had to change my whole schedule. I was ready. I just did it. I didn't deliberate, I didn't complain, I just did it.  This was new as well; not deliberating or complaining and just going with the flow. Pretty much everyone I know bitches and moans about everything. It's habit. I never knew otherwise, so I never noticed it. I can barely tolerate it anymore. It's unpleasant on the ear. I also purchased a very expensive light stimulating baseball hat that I wore three times a week. I was hoping to resemble Doc Brown in Back to the Future. Instead it was a black baseball cap from Chernobyl. If I looked at it I was blinded. I hid it from my kids so they wouldn't hurt their eyes out of curiosity. Supposedly this hat is all the rage among aging Hollywood actors. Great🙄.

I started drinking a tbsp of coconut oil daily, wanting to nourish my insides and eliminate whatever toxins were lurking inside. I took numerous steam showers so I could just be enveloped in moisture. I wanted to become the opposite of dry and brittle, both literally and figuratively. I wanted growth, health, newness, a fresh start. I rubbed coconut oil into my skin (until I broke out in places I didn't know one could break out in). My sole focus was wellness. And it felt calm and right. It felt so nice to take such loving, educated care of myself. No one has ever tended to me like that. As I said, I've always had to provide for myself. That's not victim-y, it's just fact.   

Well, a year later my hair still needs to grow several more inches but I love its current length. It's shiny and healthy. I've never had shiny hair before! My vitamin regimen gives me a noticeable glow that people have stopped me on the street about. The yoga has impacted my life in ways I never thought possible. The morning classes are not always easy to wake up for, but fill me with energy, joy, strength, and flexibility. My studio has become a place of refuge. The notion of going to sleep at a decent time and not falling into the iPhone vortex for three hours at night was a needed change. I still do that sometimes, cuz I'm a girl in 2018, but it's a crappy feeling. At least now I know better. Then I didn't even think it was a problem.  I learned how to take care of my hair as I do other parts of me. I learned when to clarify and when to nourish, and I'm not just referring to hair. So many people lose the quality of their hair as they age. It thins, cracks, loses its luster. They give up on it, chalking it up to aging. Maybe there are other factors to consider besides getting older in numbers. Maybe it's indicative of a deeper drying up... That can be brought back to life... I learned that Spring always follows Winter. There are seasons for everything. There are times when the trees are bleak and barren, but then the leaves do grow back. It takes patience but it happens. For all things a season. We reap what we sew. Output from input.     

Because I'm Lady Blaga, I must leave you with an honest, self deprecating anecdote from this challenging time. One night I was sleeping in a shower cap covering my stinky curry oil mask, while wearing an adult diaper since my period was what can only be described as a "murder scene". I called my friend SF, described the scenario, and said, "Gentleman, take a number."   

❤️, the 🐝