The new haircut

I drove myself for a haircut today. Really, it’s the little things that I still celebrate and pray that I never lose the objectivity, clarity and gratefulness to take these things for granted again.
It was a mere 2 years ago deep into my illness that a friend had to drive me for a haircut for my birthday. I could barely walk and hold my head up, but I was “recovering” and “healing” and I was going to start putting a better foot forward. I was going to get better come hell or high water and that haircut was just the beginning.
My wonderful stylist gifted me with the extra time a few days ago and straightened my ever-so-naturally curly hair. For those of you who don’t have curly hair, let me share with you that to straighten this mane takes more energy and time than I have on a regular basis, so it is a special occasion kind of a thing. Meaning, it only happens like once a year or when my daughter begs for us to both do it to match.
To straighten hair in Kansas is nearly as easy as in the swamps of Mississippi. We don’t battle the humidity here, but the wind is a killer. Enough said, the stylist straightened my hair and I have gotten so many double takes from people the past few days. Surprisingly, these double takes are positive, but the last ones I experienced were in the depths of the illness and chocked full of negative shock.

Walking around with straightened hair is akin to being incognito without being in disguise. That is what chronic illness feels like. You are the same person inside that you have always been, but your exterior is wasting away to the shock of your onlookers.

Or to the people that experience inner physical turmoil, you look the same on the outside but inside you feel like you are wasting away.

I have always believed that the eyes are the windows for the soul. I would even do a double take myself when I was really sick and saw myself in a mirror. Skin hanging on bones at 85 lbs and my hair just hanging from my head; I was in disbelief that the empty eyes staring back at me were really me. No wonder people who saw me did double takes, I seemed to be only half of me at all.

It is so difficult to have hope when you yourself are watching your eyes become dead and lifeless and your body decay and wither. Anchoring to hope amidst this suffering is CRUCIAL. God is the life giver. The one who gives and takes away (Job 1:21).
Look at pictures of yourself whole and healthy. Frame your mind around healing and total health and for Pete’s sake stay away from mirrors.
I don’t have a single photo from my sickest days. That was on purpose. Yes, it would document for you all God’s miracle of healing but I don’t want to remember the darkest days. I want to only focus on today and continued health and newly straightened hair.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

Blessings and healing,

Janice Fairbairn

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