My Loss

Do you know what it feels like to be in pain when you breathe? Last night after I left the salon with half my hair in their sink, I came home and started to clean my bathroom. I took a deep breath in and I thought I had breathed in toxic air. I felt the back of my mouth to my esophagus to my lungs about to explode. I felt my lungs tighten up as two huge hands just went inside my body and squeezed them as hard as possible. I was trying to keep my mind off the nervous breakdown with in.

I turned my key to open my living room door.

“I am so upset, I’m about to have a fucking attack.”

My roommate and his friend were sitting down watching television, as my roommate inquires about my outburst.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m about to go crazy, I lost a lot of my hair. Why didn’t they just bleach it from the beginning? Why did they tell her to do it the other way?”

He just sat there with his friend. I took my coat off and put it in the closet. My dishes from last night were washed by my roommate but then there were new dishes he just used in the sink. I washed those dishes and put in a conditioner in my hair and kept it in for 10 minutes, I rinsed and then beated two eggs and three table spoons of mayo. This yellowish crap was going in my hair for a deep conditioning. I was hoping it worked. So I kept this shit on my hair for an hour as I cleaned the bathroom. It was seeping out of my shower cap and dripping down my face and of course it got in my eye. I had blurred vision for a bout a minute or so. How pissed was I? I was about to throw the three cans of sauce through a window. I wanted to throw everything through a window. I wanted to break things I wanted to cry and cry hard. Not only was the loss of my hair hurting me, it was the three pimples almost one top of one another on my forehead contributing. My friend Pete said that they were having a meeting. It was funny at the moment, but when I went home petrified it wasn’t funny anymore.

I actually used a brillo pad to clean my bath tub as I showered. My tub is older than my mother your mother and your next door neighbor’s dog walker’s mother all put together. I was dreading to rinse the potato salad minus the potato out of my hair. When I finished washing the tub I started to wash myself. I rinsed the crap out of my hair and the tub kept getting clogged. With my foot I removed what ever was in the way of the drain. It was my hair. Must I continue on the attack I was about to have? So much hair. I really don’t have much to begin with. I finally had my hair long, then I got it colored and it needed a cut so there goes my length and then they had to correct my color to this conclusive drama of me in my shower trying to keep a grip of not having a nervous breakdown.

I didn’t have dinner; ok I had a small pickle. I sat on my bed and blew my hair. It felt nasty. I was afraid to touch it, thinking it was going to all fall out. I was told that I shouldn’t do anything else with my hair for a month.

“Try to wash it maybe once a week. Don’t blow it out.”

Ahhh, ok so I really don’t wash my hair often, because there’s nothing in it. Unless it’s frizzy and all in nasty knots. The only way my hair looks decent is if I blow it out and of course I can not do that now. I put my hair, what ever was left of it, into a pony bun tail. I laid in bed and cried. I rarely cry. Well, I cry a lot in the inside, but rarely do I let it come out. Why are people ashamed to cry? Why was I trying to keep quiet so my roommate wouldn’t hear me? It was because I really was trying not to cry, but at the same time I wanted to scream and cry my fucking brains out. I tried not to move, thinking I was going to find the remains of my hair on my pillow in the morning. I cried silently and cried in the hidden dark. I touched the back of my head and felt what I lacked. I was scared and didn’t know what to do. I kept asking my angel (my brother) to help give me courage and to help my hair stay on my head. Then I was thinking should I just cut my hair real short? NO! I’ve been waiting so long for my hair to grow. Slowly I will get over this and I thought to myself, maybe if I try not to stress about it, I will have a better chance of less hair falling out. I had lost hair once before from stress, and I don’t need that to happen on top of my coloring losing hair mishap drama.

I finally got out of bed and realized I had to move my freaking car to the alternate side. I was pissed. I didn’t even bother to look on my pillow. I didn’t want to get more upset. I got ready and left. I left with my lung hacking up its last breath, well that’s what it felt like, and trying to keep my head up high. I can’t stop coughing and I can’t seem to get the loss of my hair out of my mind.