26/02/2024 – “Hair today, gone tomorrow”

In September 2023 I shaved my head. The reaction was strong. Everyone immediately interpreted the change as a signifier.

Most people asked me if I were ill. A shaved head is a mark of chemotherapy.

I found cancer a decade ago. I was, in part, marking the milestone. I experienced my cancer as an 18-month process; then, 42 months more of oral chemo; then, a return to the “normal” population, with no more structure than a survival rate: 84% at ten years; 80% at fifteen. Here today…

I call my experience “cancer-lite”. I had clean removals, with “narrow but clear” margins. I avoided radiation therapy. There were some rough spots, but I was spared much. And I’m still here.

I also lost friends in August and in September. People who had helped shape my life, and myself, each deeply and uniquely. I wanted to mourn them and to speak about them. The buzz cut offered many openings.

Immigration is hard. Old behaviours/solutions fail. Re-identification is difficult. By September, I was all in. We had decided to end our Downtown rental; purchased our new condo and I had allowed myself to pause the grinding diminution of hundreds of failed job applications. There was no purpose to anxiety, regret, about our move, anymore. My remaining choice was how to live within those decisions. Some people shake the dust from their feet. I shaved the hair from my head.

It signified the choice to be happy, to trust. Fall 2023 was full of gratitude and nesting in our new home. I know it’s likely the eye of the storm: I am a natural worrier. My Peace? Gone tomorrow, typically. While I can, I am making it count.

By this week, I was looking mad-scientist scrotty. Carey rapidly bought into the convenience of short, short hair for Supertrip. He had let his sprout meanwhile. This week, it pivoted from lustrous and flowing - to looking like his mother. Time to brave the shave.

It’s very freeing, if bracing in February. Our winter hats are now comically too big for us.

Our relationship shares its timeline with my cancer journey. I was discharged after my first surgery on March 2nd, 2014. On March 3rd, propped up in bed, drainage tubes dangling, I opened my laptop. Carey’s profile was a new match. I have an online-dating career of one. By contrast, Carey has a wild selection of stories.

As we connected, I learned that Carey, although Florida-based, was in Alberta, finalising his mother’s estate. She died of metastasised cancer in 2012.

I immediately offered him an “out”. I didn’t even have a prognosis. I couldn’t put anyone through it twice. His response was profoundly authentic Carey: “It’s about quality, not quantity… there are no guarantees.”

We made it count.

Still here, changed by persistence and partnership, and with much less hair (some of that voluntary), we begin another shared adventure, exactly 10 years on. SuperTrip starts on March 3rd 2024.