99 STRANDS OF RED HAIR ON THE (SHOWER) WALL

Not to be overly vulnerable with you (anonymous reader), but I shed, like, a lot. So much so that a “why is my hair falling out” google search has in fact graced my browser of choice (bing, obviously). Has the thickness of my hair changed? Not really. Am I worried about all the hair that appears in my hands after I shampoo? Sure. But let me make myself clear, I’m not asking for solutions to this problem–the fact of the matter is that my dad is bald, so it was only a matter of time anyway. 

I am committed to cleaning off the shower walls immediately after I rinse and repeat and every few days the fateful moment of gathering strands of hair off white tile feels like some sardonic goodbye to my best feature (although, have you seen these stems?). Anyway, this week I am lamenting the loss of an inconsequential amount of fake red hair. The act of gathering it off the wall and throwing it away seems like a meaningless ritual, but seeing as I write a blog dedicated to trash, I’ve found a sentiment worth sharing (surprise!). 

Seeing a part of yourself become lost to you is painful. Maybe losing hair isn’t a perfect equivalent to some emotional change but the connection is there: looking down at something that used to be yours and is yours no longer. Worst of all, is when something lost is beyond return. I cannot reattach my fallen hair onto my head, just as I will never be the Bridget of yesterday, last week, or 5 years ago. Coming to terms with the fact that I am different from past versions of myself shakes the foundation of my self awareness. I find myself holding on to old identities and I wonder if it would be more prudent to mourn them.

Fundamentally, I remain the same. My t-shirts are folded just as they always have been, I still laugh at my own jokes, and I watch Twilight when I’m sad because it comforts me. What if the framework through which I see the world changes, even if I, at my core, stay the same? I think that's one of life’s inevitabilities. Growing up and being capable of shouldering more responsibility means that there has to be some loss of innocence or ignorance. With the loss of something comes the gain of something different. 

Over the years, my hair has slowly turned curly. It didn’t always twist and bend in the way that I’m so familiar with now. The Bridget of today is different, not less. I don’t look at my formerly semi-straight hair with longing, I think about my hair now as the emergence of who I really am. Who I am meant to be at this moment. Tossing out the old strands of my hair can now become a new kind of ritual. It can be the moment when I mourn parts of myself that I miss. Grieve my past self but also dream about the new me.

There’s a peace that comes from knowing that the fundamentals of who I am cannot be lost. They can be hidden and transformed, but never gone. I will never be a past version of myself again, but I know her. I know her memories and her emotions. She is with me and maybe in those moments of mourning I can pull on that tether to a past version of myself, not to become her again, but to be comforted by who she was and what she represents. Letting my old hair fall in the trash and knowing that I can create a moment of remembering in my day to day. I can practice interacting with those feelings of loss instead of letting them keep me from moving forward.

Your Trashiest Friend (or enemy),

B