Hair

The one thing I can do is my hair. 

Every other aspect of my beauty routine has fallen to the wayside. I've felt, as I said to my mother over the phone the other day, like a "nasty little naked mole rat freak-show." I don't have much of a skincare routine anymore. The abandonment of my self-tanning regime has left me pale as a raw cashew, and I haven't bothered putting much effort into my outfits outside of their capacity to keep me warm. But for some reason, I can muster the strength to unearth my hair dryer from the cabinet and blow out my hair. A part of me thinks this is the last tenuous thread holding me together. A quote from Fleabag comes to mind: "Hair is everything." 

For the past two months, I've been going through some health issues. I've been in pain off and on, some days worse than others, with seemingly no end in sight. My doctors are more or less as flummoxed about my condition as I am. It's been a whole lot of shrugged shoulders and Loxoprofen prescriptions. 

I fully believe that a human being can survive just about anything so long as they know it will eventually end. As for me, I'm not sure when (or if) this pain will end. I'm certain this is a tale as old as time for anyone dealing with chronic pain, and I don't contend to be suffering in the same way; I only endeavor to commiserate. Because it sucks. That's the best way I can put it. 

And yet, I do my hair. I go to work. I go home and try to sleep, but mostly, I don't. I consider bashing my head in with a large rock, and then realize that there aren't even medium-sized rocks readily available in Tokyo, let alone large ones (maybe I could buy one, but that just seems pathetic), and abandon that plan altogether. 

I'm alive, I feel, in a very rudimentary sense. I'm breathing and paying bills, and that's it. I miss my old self, but also kind of hate her for not realizing how good she had it. 

For as long as I can remember, I've always been someone who was fiercely independent. I never cared much for people telling me what to do, and yet, recently, it's the only thing I can think about. When I manage to sleep, I dream about it: of someone telling me the right things to eat, the right medicine to take, the right ways to contort my body; whatever it takes to make this pain go away. I'm tired of doing all the thinking and planning and advocating for myself, only to end up in the same place I was before. 

It almost feels like an act of cruelty that I'm having to make these decisions on my own. Cruelty, I'll clarify, enacted on myself. Nonetheless, the result is the same. I'm in pain. I'm in pain, but my hair looks amazing. Thank God for that, I guess.