Angst about my appearance

"you're beautiful..." says an elegant lady in the hospital waiting room... she'd been there for a couple of hours waiting on her husband's testing, i just arrived for my couple of hours of testing.  mother of eight, daughter also dealing with multiple cancers...  she recognized 'the look'

it was both sweet and kind... i certainly don't feel all that attractive these days, but i also have made a determined and repeated choice to ignore that feeling! LOL perhaps even defiant, since i haven't drawn on the brows or always wore a covering (altho a hat or scarf has been a wonderful thing when the temperatures allow)

i guess that appearance-angst has a long history in my world, independent of cancer.  it was something i meditated on regularly for years.

my ex-husband came to despise me body and soul (and ironically he believed he could also love me, which i couldn't possibly see by MY definition of "love"...)   NOT an experience i would wish on any one, and not a scenario i would choose to tolerate as long a second time!

it blessed me though, in a deep and profound ways:  it taught me about appropriate boundaries, it helped me get over allowing another's inappropriate opinions of me become my opinion of me, and best of all it gave me an abiding self-referencing yardstick for my unique humanity irrespective of surface trappings.

and perhaps it made me more compassionate too!  bonus!

i'm eagerly looking forward to eyelashes and eyebrows, for both practical and aesthetic reasons.  but i still can smile at the mirror's reflection of geekiness, realizing that the humanity of Bea is not altered by the shell that is currently on display.  it may put off some, may encourage others to compliment my smile, may make a child comment or look twice... so be it!

for a few months more, it will make me an object of observable difference.  and from what i read, some people repeatedly experience cyclical lash/brow loss for a while, even if they don't have to repeat chemotherapy.  another reminder that perhaps i shouldn't get TOO attached to my desires for what i want to look like when and just remain curious! LOL

i've kept a raggedly pile of hair on my head that is curly and more white than it was -- we'll see what the rest of the head does as it gets to recover.  months of growing ahead of me, so i expect i don't want to set any targets for a pony tail anytime soon... maybe a pixie by winter though!

and i suspect many more opportunities to meditate on appearance-angst.  to recognize it for what it is and not make it the center of my emotional firestorm on any given day.  there has to be more entertaining things to mull over, says i!