You should see how gray my hair is nowadays…..yesterday I was getting into my car outside the butcher’s shop, clutching a bag of hot links like they were my new lover, when one of my neighbours from a year ago spotted me.
I really don’t like her because she is one of those women who sleep with most of her neighbours (well the men at least) and she is a consummate liar. “Oh” she crooned…”Your hair, it looks beautiful blonde!” I grinned politely and informed her that it was white, not blonde. Today, a woman that I work with told me that my hair looked like a halo…that was funnier than being blonde. So here I am, at 50, and apparently I look like an angelic bimbo….what a joke! Back when I was a redhead I used to swim three days a week to lose some flab. I didn’t lose anything but a lot of hair. I used to think that I would see it floating about the swimming pool like a coarse jelly fish. It was scary. I imagined myself balding quickly, and wondered if I would ever find a date with no hair, wrinkles, and breasts that got in the way of my waistband. I lamented my thinning hair while dressing in the gym locker room, and while in the middle of a big whine my eyes connected with a women who changed my attitude, I met Sue.
Sue suffers from Alopecia, which is a disease that causes the body to lose all of its hair, permanently. Sue looks like Vanessa Redgrave, I always tell her that. She is tall, willowy, intelligent and hairless. Sue hates wigs, so she wears hats, and she carries herself with such dignity. Her disease will not harm her physically, just emotionally because of the way people react to her condition.
So there I was lamenting about losing handfuls of hair, and found myself thinking that Sue would probably give anything to have my problem……..she was so gracious though, she didn’t make any remark, and she could have. It certainly reminded me to think before I speak, or rather look before I speak….. We have remained friends to this day, and I have stopped whining about my hair. In actual fact I tell myself how lucky I am to have what I do have. I stopped swimming, stopped dyeing/bleaching/colouring my hair and now it is gray & white and HEALTHY!!!!!!! So that is my lesson for the day – stop thinking about what you don’t have. Think about what you do……. Jude The philospher….. P.S. Sorry I have been remiss with daily posts…..my real job has been slightly demanding, so I have been mentally dead. Please keep coming back to read!!!!!!!!!!