The Merits of the Case

My trial practice intensive last week was, as the name implies, intense. The days flew by, but a lot of the time it felt like I was out of town. I didn’t spend much time at home and the time I was there was spent studying and getting ready for the next day. But it was a good way for me to take a class…one week of intense work and family disruption means I don’t have to take it spread out over an entire semester. And it was a great class.

The worst moment came on Monday night. I had been at school all day on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and Monday was the first day back to school for the kids. On Monday night I went in to say goodnight to Matthew and he informed me that I had forgotten to pack his lunch that morning. I told him that I thought he was buying lunch on Monday, but he reminded me that actually he had planned to take his lunch that day. I asked him what he ate, and he told me that he just had some apple juice because he wasn’t able to get anything else. I felt awful and figured that probably clinched my loss of the Mother of the Year award. And it was only January 7th! Needless to say I made sure I had the whole lunch thing figured out for the rest of the week.

Regular classes started this week and while my schedule this semester is very manageable, the days I have classes are going to be pretty hectic. But no matter how hectic it gets, this semester is going to be very different from last semester. I have thought many times over the past couple of weeks about how appreciative I am to only have to handle classes and my regular daily life for the next few months without having to fit in chemotherapy and sick days.

During my trial practice class we had to wear suits to school every day. By the end of the week I was getting sick of trying to coordinate scarves with suits and of trying to look professional with the additional accessory on my head. I have been tired of wearing something on my head for a long time now, but I have needed to continue to cover my head for the sake of warmth. I wore a scarf to class on Tuesday, as usual, but when I got home that evening I took it off and decided that I am done with scarves. I have enough hair that I no longer look bald (although I don’t really have enough to keep my head warm yet) and I think it is high time to be finished with head coverings. So today, for the first time since I lost my hair, I spent the entire day at school with nothing on my head. Except hair, of course.

I will post pictures soon so you can see for yourself, but my hair is super, super short. To me, it looks more like post-cancer treatment hair than a fashion choice. But despite my interpretation of it, two separate people came up to me at school today and told me that it looked “cute.” I don’t think either of them realized how very, very happy I was to hear them say that or how good and normal and healthy it made me feel. It has been a long time since anyone said that my hair was cute! Another friend told me that she thought it looked like I was hip and cool and had made a conscious decision to wear my hair this way. I feel far from hip and cool these days, but I appreciate the sentiment and hope that I can pull it off while it’s growing out.

Last Friday, Randy and I went to dinner with friends at a restaurant that we all frequent. Our “regular” waitress waited on us and greeted us all warmly when she came to our table. After the initial hellos, she looked at me and said, enthusiastically, “Oh, look at your hair! It looks good! I should do that with mine!” I didn’t explain why my hair was this short, but instead told her that having it this short made it really easy to “do” in the morning. We all laughed about it after she left the table because it is quite funny that people think this is a deliberate hair style.

Now that I’ve completed yet another post about it, I have to say that I can’t believe how much I have written about hair in the past nine months. If you would have told me a year ago that I was going to be this obsessed with hair this year, I would never have believed you. Shoes…maybe. But hair?!