Back to Me

By September 25^th I could still have passed for androgynous but with every bit of growth I felt myself returning. I had to pluck my eyebrows again. New strands were growing under my arms and on my pubis. It was amazing. I looked forward to shaving and waxing and going to the hairdressers. I would never complain about excess hair again. I couldn’t wait to put the wig back in its box and the box on the shelf.

      The day came in the middle of November. I was flying to Wellington for a few days. I took a deep breath and left the wig behind in Auckland. I didn’t know anyone in Wellington except my daughter so it was a good testing ground of my new look. My hair was still extremely short but thick and light brown. It finally looked more like a designed hairstyle than the growth on a recovering scalp. Charlotte and Alex both approved and that gave me the confidence to stop hiding. Back in Auckland I revealed my new hair to everyone. After the initial surprise that I would get such a short haircut, (I never corrected this assumption of course) everything was normal. My friends were mostly none the wiser. I imagined it was how young women must have felt a hundred years ago who got pregnant out of wedlock and disappeared during their confinement. The story would be that they were studying or vacationing somewhere else and when they returned it was if they never left, although they themselves were completely different because they had become a mother in the interim. I was the same but completely different as well and no one knew it. They only saw a friend with a not very complimentary short hairstyle, who to them was the same person they had always known.

       I kept the wig nearby in the next two weeks just in case I had a moment of uncertainty, but I never went back to it. On December 1, four and a half months after the mephalan, I put the wig back in its yellow box and put the box on a shelf. Just as the summer sun began to strengthen in Auckland, the curls on my head were beginning to fight their way back. It was a great feeling. I was returning and I could only hope it was for good.