Its a strange thing being introduced to new people and being excused for your long hair. Its never very abrasive and usually doesn't cary further then a simple, "He's doing it for Locks for Love, he doesn't always look like this."  Its nothing like being black and going through a "resume check" by the group, or being disabled and the story of your injury prefacing even your chance to say hello. However benign, I do find it interesting that the elephant in the room is the six inch pony tail falling from the back of my head. Staring across the table to these new friends, I couldn't help but wonder what must be going through their mind. "I wonder what he is like when he's normal?" "He must be committed to his cause." "Oh, well that makes sense why he would look like that." 

My private time is when no one is around, what I call the "naked in the shower no one else is there" kind of time. It is the sort of time when a person comes to face the reality of themselves.  The mask of the day, either a run of mascara that swirls in the drain, or the push up bra that is far out of reach, or that loose skin where muscle should be, all your short comings are all to apparent as you run the soap over your body. Washing away the grime also washes away the mask I put between me and the world. Masks are messy.  In my private time, I often find myself pulling fist full's of hair out. The rats nest that accumulates at the bottom of the drain and finds itself on every wall and ledge remind me of the times I watched my mother pull her hair out into the sink. Clumps so large that each finger seemed lost in a forest of her gorgeous deep black hair. Each handful was as full as the one before, and it just kept coming.  Therapy often requires a change of yourself. Chemo therapy requires that you sacrifice yourself.  Burn your self esteem, your appetite, your energy, your enthusiasm, your will, even your beauty.  Hopefully it's enough. Hopefully you burn enough of yourself away that there is nothing left for the cancer to want for. And after the ashes have cooled and hope begins to sprout a new, only then can a cancer patient begin; begin and rebuild all over again.  

I have recommended to my friends and people around me that everyone, just once, should try and go bald. Donate your hair for a good cause and go bald, just once. A surprising number of friends, so far everyone I have ever spoken to, say that their hair is something they just can't part with. Woman are especially adverse to the idea. Their hair is a part of their identity, its a part of what makes them a woman.  As a nurse, I have hundreds of interactions a month with people who no longer have the markers of their kind. Climbers without legs, singers who are deaf, dancers with back fractures, cyclist with arthritis, men who can not climb 4 steps, others who can not reach the telephone before their heart gives out. Women who can not have children, have hair, have breasts, or even have spouses. People who haven't seen the sunlight, never felt a butterfly's wings, children who are more safe in an isolate then the arms of their parents.  Yet these very people listen to a cacophony about them,  a drumming and almost mind numbing chorus of praise for their strength.  Is it really so amazing they they have come so far?  To suffer the loss of a leg for the rest of their life is certainly amazing when compared to you suffering the loss of your hair for 12 months. 

Yet no one seems to think that a patient, or a human for that matter, is anything more then their challenges.  Some people wear their struggles where everyone can see them, like blindness, obesity, poverty or acne. Others have problems easily tucked in the closet at home, like infidelity, racism, insecurity, shame and addiction. We celebrate those who beat their outside problem, hoping one day we could beat our own problem still hidden in the closet. Are you known by your inside problems? Do people introduce you as the addict, the shamed? Then why do you give such focus to others outside problems that can't be hidden?  Many patients are known to both their medical providers and their friends and family by their injury or illness. Every time someone comes to visit, the only thing anyone wants to talk about, and have opinions about, is the reason for this hospitalization.  Because you do not see yourself beyond your mask, you can not see a patient beyond their problem. If you can not see past the problem, then you never will know a person. If you can not see past your mask, you will never know yourself. 

I hold no apology for my haggard appearance. I am not trying to present myself as anything other then what I am. I am Eric. I believe that God sees through every mask. I know that to be known is the cry of every human heart. I am learning to love my faults, I am learning grace. I am learning to pull my hair out, a little at a time, every day, until the day I wont need it anymore.