Life is just so full of roller coasters, it would bring you to tears if it wasn't so comical. I'm sure I've bored you all to tears about how tough, challenging and sad 2013 has been for me....and by golly I think it is just going to keep kicking me right to the very last day.
When I was well and in better health/fitness....you could find me in a fitness class, on the walking/running trails, at the gym or working with my trainer faithfully just about 6 days a week. That much exercise (which I loved loved loved...and WILL get back to again) does not leave much time for foo foo hair dos....so I opted to stop coloring my hair and I opted to keep it cut fairly short all the time. It's always pretty much defined me. When I was in high school and sometime around 2000, I did let my hair grow really long....down to my waist. But that just wouldn't work for the work outs and sweating I was doing.....So short it was...and thank goodness I have a wonderful man who loves it that way.
But occasionally I get a bug and think I might want to let it grow out some.....and since the Achilles Tendon surgery kept me away from the gym a lot and then this dang breast cancer surgery and treatments.....(OH OK....I know those are really flimsy excuses)....anyway I stopped getting my hair cut and started kind of shaping it myself (yes I do know how to cut hair) and let it grow.....leaning toward the Tessanne Chin look
And my hair was well on it's way to even having the length of becoming a short bob.
Then Thanksgiving came and went and Christmas came and went.....and along with those holidays the cookies, candies, pies, and cakes (not to mention some other even nutritional foods) came and went right into my mouth!
OH YES IT'S TRUE!!! So I had a long long talk with myself and some added support by my best guy, my spin challenge partner and my newly adopted daughter in Georgia (that's another story)....that it was indeed time to get back to the gym, get back on track with my eating healthy and get back to exercising. After all radiation treatments are going well and I've clung to the sadness and challenge of this year long enough....IT'S TIME!
So for me that means....get out my motivational T-shirts, look at my motivational poster and quotes on Pinterest, pull my BOSU ball, my Stability ball, my weights, my bands and my brand new Kettle Bells and Interval Timer that Santa brought me this year for Christmas.....out of the closet and start using them and not just looking at them. It also means to go back to the hair cut I love so much and that is so easy and conducive to exercise.....that being short....and by short I mean kind of like the pictures at the beginning of this post......and yes like this
So yes I agree that is pretty darn short....but I could still pull the sides forward and had a little bit of a bang....so when I wasn't exercising and sweaty, I could at least try to look a little feminine!
I should have just cut it myself (I can do that)....but instead I decided to try a beauty salon in town that I had never been to. I researched it online and even read the bios of each stylist...and made an appointment for yesterday.................well just kick me when I am down!!!!!
After she finished cutting my hair, I only wish I had this much hair
but I don't......what was that beautician thinking and why didn't I say whooooooa that's enough. I did tell her when she was done that it was way shorter than I wanted it. But once it's laying on the floor what do you do????
But now that I have moaned an
d groaned, ranted and raved....about how I actually look exactly like I did when my hair was growing out after my first breast cancer
when I did have chemo...after all of that...... I got to thinking maybe this is like the giraffe story I read one time......in a book my dear friend Larry gave me when I was going through my first breast cancer....
Bringing a giraffe into the world is a tall order. A baby giraffe falls 10 feet from its mother’s womb and usually lands on its back. Within seconds it rolls over and tucks its legs under its body. From this position it considers the world for the first time and shakes off the last vestiges of the birthing fluid from its eyes and ears. Then the mother giraffe rudely introduces its offspring to the reality of life
In his book, A View from the Zoo, Gary Richmond describes how a newborn giraffe learns its first lesson.
The mother giraffe lowers her head long enough to take a quick look. Then she positions herself directly over her calf. She waits for about a minute, and then she does the most unreasonable thing. She swings her long, pendulous leg outward and kicks her baby, so that it is sent sprawling head over heels.When it doesn’t get up, the violent process is repeated over and over again. The struggle to rise is momentous. As the baby calf grows tired, the mother kicks it again to stimulate its efforts. Finally, the calf stands for the first time on its wobbly legs.
Then the mother giraffe does the most remarkable thing. She kicks it off its feet again. Why? She wants it to remember how it got up. In the wild, baby giraffes must be able to get up as quickly as possible to stay with the herd, where there is safety. Lions, hyenas, leopards, and wild hunting dogs all enjoy young giraffes, and they’d get it too, if the mother didn’t teach her calf to get up quickly and get with it.
The late Irving Stone understood this. He spent a lifetime studying greatness, writing novelized biographies of such men as Michelangelo, Vincent van Gogh, Sigmund Freud, and Charles Darwin.
Stone was once asked if he had found a thread that runs through the lives of all these exceptional people. He said, “I write about people who sometime in their life have a vision or dream of something that should be accomplished and they go to work.
“They are beaten over the head, knocked down, vilified, and for years they get nowhere. But every time they’re knocked down they stand up. You cannot destroy these people. And at the end of their lives they’ve accomplished some modest part of what they set out to do.” (I found this story rewritten by Craig B. Larson on a website of inspirational stories)....
Now I don't count myself among the Michelangelos van Goghs and such.....but I do believe that sometimes we have to get knocked down and keep standing up to get the message of remembering how we got up.
So even though I didn't have to do chemo this time....this hair cut is reminding me how I had to pull myself up by the bootstraps, a week after my husband passed away and face the cancer and get myself through it. When my hair grew back in 2002, I remember feeling like I was going to make it and I really started thinking positive and moving forward.............now here we are at the end of BAD YEAR 2013....and I looked in the mirror this morning and saw my short short short hair....and knew I was going to make it again. So time to start thinking positive and moving forward.
See you back in a bit....I'm going to put on the yummy Slouchy Ski Hat from Mexicali Blues my step-daughter Melissa sent me, bundle up, grab my iPod and head out for a brisk walk......I'm going to walk right out of 2013 and into brilliantly beautiful bountiful healthy 2014. Hey why don't you grab a hat and coat, tie up your sneakers and join me.
