346/365 – The annual haircut

Just under a year ago, I wrote about getting my hair cut and, as you can imagine, the barnet has got a little out of control in that time. I had a window to sort it out yesterday and visited a hairdresser I haven’t gone to since I was a teenager. 

Back in those days, I would ask my mum to take me to the top salons for my latest style. Be it a messy bob, a crop, a flash of red or a full head of highlights, having a good haircut was important to me. 

This isn’t only because I was a frivolous teenager – I had very unruly thick hair which made me self conscious. Getting the must-have poker straight look of the time was impossible and that made it a talking point for others (exactly what you don’t want as a teenager). After years of trying and failing to follow the fashion, I gave up and did a Fleetwood Mac (went my own way).

It sounds like such unimportant drivel now, but as a teenager it was a big shift. Experimenting out on my own – trying to find who I was and wanted to be. Realising that nothing was permanent and that if something didn’t work it wasn’t the end of the world. Realising that other people’s opinions didn’t really matter when they were concerning my appearance. Happiness and value had to come from within.

Since then I have gone through a range of life experiences and often feel like a stranger to my younger self. But yesterday I felt close to her as I sat in the chair looking at my face self consciously. I even felt a little jealous and inspired by her daring and swithered about asking the hairdresser for something radical. Except that my mum doesn’t bankroll my hair cuts anymore and so a cut and blow dry was as far as my budget would stretch.

You see for the last few years I’ve had the same cut and part of that is vanity around the myasthenia. I’ve swithered about doing something different but always panic about whether it will accentuate the  eye symptoms. Having it shorter again, which is always what I’ve been drawn to, would draw attention to my face and thus my eye. Plus styling can be difficult when I’m feeling fatigued as my arms can feel heavy and tired. The lowest maintenance possible the better, has been my reasoning. 

But in the New Year I think I’ll do something different. I’m not sure what yet, but I think it’s time to challenge those fears and the vanity. 

3/365 – Haircut time

Time for my annual haircut. Bit of an over exaggeration, but not much. It’s not that I hate the hairdressers – I love getting my hair washed, my head massaged and I even enjoy the small talk (or in my hairdresser’s case ‘how to solve the crisis in the Middle East’ chat)

The hard part since being diagnosed with MG is spending an hour in front of a mirror. There is no way to escape the symptoms during that time and it usually makes me reflective. No matter how good my hair looks, I often find it is difficult to look past the partial tosis, or squint eye. This makes me think, if I can’t look past it what hope do I have of making anyone else.

This time was no exception in terms of reflection and discomfort at that amount of mirror time. Thankfully, I left feeling a bit less scruffy.