untangling

"I need to physically see the loss I feel."

untangling

an old essay i wrote about grief and heartbreak that has nothing to do with eating disorders but i want to share it so here it is!

“So what are we doing today?” she asks as she drapes me in a black cloak that’s too tight around my neck, but I’m too embarrassed to ask her to loosen it.

Maybe my neck is the problem, I wonder as I look at the reflection of myself under the fluorescent lights.

My hairdresser, Janna, tells me about this new guy she’s dating as she begins to comb through my hair. She’s really into him, she says. He’s not like the others. He’s good with her kids. He brings her coffee to work. She uses her comb to point to the paper cup on the table. 

Hairdressers have a knack for filling empty space with conversation, especially Janna. Aside from the fact that she does a good job cutting my unruly hair, I think this is why I like her so much. She always takes the lead in conversation and we sashay through the weather, the tasty sandwiches at the restaurant down the street and her daughter’s new quest to color on every wall of her house. It’s effortless and I usually admire how easy it can be for her to just talk. Today, she extends her hand to dance to the tune of New Boyfriend, but I don’t want to take it. 

My hair is a knotted mess. Janna has to hold the top of my head with one hand as she yanks the comb with the other through my hair.

What Janna doesn’t know, though, is that I am the knotted mess. Today I was supposed to start untangling myself from the web of heartbreak I’ve been in. She’s interrupting that with stories of impromptu beach trips and flowers on the kitchen table. 

I’m making a mistake, I think for half of a second. I should go, I think, but I don’t move - something I had grown quite familiar with during my relationship with him. I stay seated in the chair. 

One time, an older man stopped me to ask if my curls were natural. He tilted his head gently to the side as he told me about his wife and the way her hair used to look just like mine: blonde, curly and wild. He smiled and reminisced about how much he loved seeing it blow in the wind as they drove in his convertible. 

I once thought I was loved like that. 

At this moment, my hair doesn’t look like the “high school sweethearts madly in love sneaking out of their houses driving in a convertible” kind of wild. It looks more like the “he told you he doesn’t love you and you couldn’t get out of bed for days” kind of wild. 

Janna unravels the final knot and my hair is misted and smooth. She combs through it a few more times, just to be sure she got it all. I can feel the comb reach all the way down to the middle of my back. The sensation sends tingles down my spine and soothes me for the first time in weeks. 

This feeling makes me think of my grandma. She and I used to sit on her front porch, looking out through the big glass windows onto her small town street. Cars would drive past, neighbors would walk by and birds would sometimes take a rest right outside the window. She would run her fingers through my hair as my head lay on her lap. Baby powder, mildew and Chanel No5 always lingered in the air. Her fingers were soft, gentle and methodical as she combed through each ringlet. My whole body would be in a tingly bliss, from the top of my scalp down to my little feet hanging over the edge of the couch. 

Even as she started to forget everything else, she always liked my hair. 

“You just have the most beautiful curls,” she would say in a pitch meant for complimenting strangers. Even though the Alzheimer’s had made me a new stranger to her, her voice still warmed my soul.

I wish I could remember the last time her fingers ran through my hair. 

I’ve often wondered: is the last strand of hair that my grandmother touched long gone from my head by now? Had it slowly grown out only to be trimmed away, or had it fallen out unsuspectingly? Neither option comforts me. 

This is partially why I’ve ended up here at the hair salon today. I don’t want to subject myself to this kind of wondering again. I want to know that I’ve cut memories of him to at least shoulder length. 

He used to brush my hair, too.

We would sit cross-legged on the bed as we watched The Office. A nightly routine we fell into as easily as I fell in love with him. 

“Really, I mean it, how do you shed so much?” he jokingly asked once, an ode to a moment in the shower earlier that evening.

A strand of my hair had gotten stuck to his chest along with the soap and water. He showed it to me, laughed and said “unbelievable, Gallagher.” 

We giggled it off as we exchanged smiley kisses. In that moment, I swore I had found gross, mundane, living magic. 

But now, sitting in this black leather chair, with a haircut and a whole life without him ahead of me, those memories sting like an open wound. 

Brushing someone’s hair feels like the ultimate act of care to me. An act of love. Why would he even bother then? I think to myself now.

I refuse to let the last pieces of hair he touched just fall out or eventually be cut away unceremoniously. This particular grief feels far too unbearable to simply let time call the shots.

I need to physically see the loss I feel. I need to cut something away as abruptly as I was.

“Hmm?” Janna nudges me, holding her fingers above my shoulder blades, double checking I am sure that’s the length I want. 

“Yeah. Cut it all off.”