A Soft Strength

For years, I used my hair as a diversion.

 It began with my ponytail phase. Every picture in my mom’s photo albums show me with my hair pulled back into a ponytail. The photos didn’t capture the back of my head and the way I carefully color-coordinated my ponytail holder with the day’s outfit.

When I entered my teenage years, I attempted to dress my hair with a variety of colorful clips and barrettes. I hoped to turn eyes away from the red pimples on my forehead and cheeks.

By my senior year in high school, I had grown my brown-M&M-colored hair down to my waist in hopes of distracting from the worsening acne on my face.

During college, as my complexion cleared, my hair shortened. Each subsequent haircut took more length until it grazed the tops of my shoulders. 

Regardless of its length, the one constant about my hair has always been its texture. Anyone who has touched my hair comments on its softness. 

I’m lucky, I suppose. My hair is naturally soft and doesn’t require special treatments beyond daily shampoo and conditioner. 

Back in junior high, my friends would braid my hair. Long hair made for excellent French braids, fishtails, and all sorts of exotic looks I could never replicate. As my friends sat behind me, commenting on how good my hair felt between their fingers, I would smile. No one was looking at my face, only my hair. I felt pretty.

Now I’m forty-four. No one braids my hair but me, on occasion. And my once all-brown hair now has a few gray strands at the temples. I’m okay with that. I have no desire to color my hair or hide the fact that I’m not the same age I once was. I accept that I’m older, and my hair is older. 

My hair is growing longer again. Partly because the pandemic has closed my local SuperCuts. Partly because my twelve-year-old son enjoys watching his mom’s hair grow longer than it’s ever been in his lifetime (it rests between my shoulder blades). And partly because I felt ready for a change. Nothing too drastic, and nothing I couldn’t easily change back. 

I have always liked my hair, even when it was easy to find fault with other parts of my body. I thought my rear-end was too big and round and decidedly not as flat as the rest of my family’s. I thought my thighs were too jiggly, my stomach too squishy. But my hair was lush and soft perfection.

At forty-four, I worry my hair is threatened. 

Each night, I discover more and more strands in the shower drain. I try to remind myself it’s a likely side effect of longer hair. While that’s true, it’s only part of the story.

There’s also a chance the excess strands of hair in my brush are one of the unpleasant side effects of my medications.

I live with a rare autoimmune disorder called Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disease. When my rheumatologist explained my diagnosis, he told me my illness had overlapping symptoms with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and myositis. He told me there was no cure, just treatments to try and manage the daily symptoms. For me, it’s pain, fatigue, and weakness in my legs. My left leg is worse than my right.

Treatment involves prescription medications. One of my medications is taken weekly, ten pills every Saturday night. Ten pills which may be causing my hair to thin and fall out of my head.

I have to take them. Over the years, when my doctor reduced my dosage, my body did not respond well. Pain and inflammation worsened. Back on the pills I went.

Am I damaging my hair to help my legs? 

There’s no way to know.

Because there’s no way of knowing what my hair will do as I age. 

My seventy-four-year-old dad’s hair hasn’t been brown since my son was born. It has gone from brown to silver to white. Whereas my seventy-five-year-old mom’s hair didn’t show gray strands until she reached seventy. 

My dad’s hair is thick and grows quickly. My mom’s hair is thin and grows so slowly she hasn’t had a haircut in years.

My hair is somewhere in between the two. Thin, but a lot of it. More brown than not. And still soft.

I’m not the same girl who once felt she wanted to cover her face with her hair. I’m a woman in my mid-forties who has learned bodies aren’t easily explained. Bodies don’t always function as planned or expected or as we’d like.

For now, I’ll focus on the facts. 

I am a chronic illness patient. 

My hair is still soft.     

I don’t need to hide behind my hair. 

This is me.

-Wendy Kennar

Wendy Kennar is a mother, writer, and former teacher. Her writing has appeared in a number of publications and anthologies, both in print and online. You can read more from Wendy at www.wendykennar.com where she writes about books, boys, and bodies (living with an invisible disability).