As a Valentine’s Day present to my husband, I decided to get marginally dressed again. I put on a bra and a red dress. Unfortunately, the dress, although clean, hadn’t been worn in a while and it smelled musty, so I switched to a pink sweater (pink and red are really living on the cutting edge of colour for me; they scream: I’m dressed up! I’m making an effort! ~ 90% of my wardrobe is black and grey) and leggings that have pockets and corduroy-type ribbing, so they give the impression that they are more civilised than mere cotton leggings. And I put on my new boots. I won’t take a picture every time I put boots on, I swear, but I never thought there would be a pair of flat boots that I liked and, more importantly, were proportional to my munchkin frame.

Unfortunately, after two changes of clothes, my battery is almost dead and I’m dizzy and incredibly drained. I woke up feeling okay, excited that I wasn’t feeling evilly ill, but how dare I pull on leggings that take a bit more effort than PJs and bend down to put on boots rather than slip my feet into slippers? It was too much and it’s only 11am. I know I will be wiped out when my husband gets home.

The entire plan was: get dressed, brush hair and maybe put on make-up. Although, all my make-up is 2+ years old and putting it on means holding my arms up in front of my face, which is a lot of energy, and it also means having to take it off. Exhausting. I wracked my brain to think if there was something I could do to surprise him. Cook dinner? No way. Clean the house ~ or even just the sitting room? Nope. Buy a present? Too late to do it online and I wouldn’t know what to get, anyway. And we’re trying to conserve our savings. So, I think my present is going to be yet another card thanking him for saving my life every day (because, make no mistake, I would be in a very different predicament without him) and wearing clothes that kind of fit me.

The funny thing about my husband is, he would never notice what I’m wearing. I could be sitting on the couch in a ball gown and he wouldn’t bat an eye. I kind of love that about him. I certainly never have to feel self-conscious about looking slovenly. He tells me I’m beautiful even on my sickest days. Love is blind.

One of the most distressing symptoms over the last year is hair loss. Never could I have predicted that I would be upset about my hair. I don’t really like hair. I’ve always preferred men with shaved heads and, half the time when I’m talking to people, I’m thinking about how much I want to tuck their hair behind their ears or put their hair in a ponytail. I find it distracting (and kind of gross) that every woman on tv has what I call “hair curtains”. Long waves down the sides of their face that are pulled forward so they have this weird part in the back of their head and no hair down their back.

Hair curtains.

Weird back of head.

So, what do I care if I have less hair? Well, my hair loss makes me look even more sickly because it is concentrated in the front and on top. You can see my scalp too much and there are clumps of short hairs that are either breaking off or just won’t grow any longer. I was on a Facebook group and someone mentioned that, because she was in the military and constantly wore her hair in a bun, she was going bald on the top of her head, so she cut her hair short. Light bulb! I’ve worn my hair up every day for the last 17 months that I’ve been housebound. So, I’m cutting it short. I’ve had my hair very short before, so it’s not a big deal, but I do have a few concerns: 1) I can’t dye my hair now, so there is a lot of grey. I’m not sure how I’ll like short greying hair. 2) I can’t wash my hair very often and, when it’s dirty, it’s nice to be able to put on a hat and still have the illusion of clean from the long hair coming out below the hat. 3) You can put long hair up in such a way that it gives the illusion of being more “dressed up”. But none of these things will sway me because I have to wear a CPAP! The headgear on a CPAP mask is hell with long hair and is undoubtedly contributing to the hair loss.

My sister’s hair stylist is going to make a house call, bless her heart. I wish I had longer, lovelier hair and I could donate it like Marie did, but I just don’t have the patience to grow it. The point of all this is to say that I guarantee my husband doesn’t even notice when I cut my hair. I have left the house with long blond hair and come back with a dark brown bob and, even when prompted, he couldn’t figure out what was different. When he met me, my hair was very short and fiery red. He’s pretty much seen it all. Luckily, days before I met him he had shaved off his long hippy hair. I sometimes wonder if I would have fallen for him if he had a ponytail. Probably. Love is blind.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

1998

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