My Wig Story...

Here is a post I wrote on Thanksgiving. And here it is on New Year's and I'm about to hit the publish button.

 Tonight at Thanksgiving dinner I had more than one relative not recognize me at first glance since I was wearing a wig (which is hilarious), so I thought now’s as good a time as any to do a wig post.  I am usually an over-sharer.  Maybe an over-detailer is more accurate.  I have a hard time recounting stories in an anecdotal way without providing a lot of details so this may be a long post.  You may want to carve out some time.

So hey everybody, I wear a wig.  Like whenever I leave the house.  I wear it to work. I wear it to grocery shop.  And I freaking love it.

Here’s why I wear a wig.  As you know, I started getting healthier earlier this year.  As I got healthier, I wanted to try to let my body heal itself.  I wanted to try to get better at taking vitamins (still working on that) and stop taking any superfluous medications I didn’t really need.  

My doctor had me on this hormone medication called spironolactone.  Which is good for your skin and hair, etc.  It’s found in a lot of birth control pills, but I was taking it on its own for the skin and hair benefits.  Well, you’re not supposed to take it long term.  Like no longer than 6 months.  I found that gem of information on the internet after I had been on it for about 6 years.  Thanks doc!  So I asked her about getting off of it.  She said, sure that’s cool, whatever.   So I did, and I had no problems. 

Fast forward to a couple months later.  I’m noticing a lot more hair is coming out every time I wash my hair.  Didn’t think much of it.  Didn’t connect any dots there.  Had Sariah cut my hair and her instructor said I had a lot of breakage/damage and she needed to cut it shorter, which was super cute but why all the breakage I wondered?  Then I went several months without getting my hair done (not unusual for me).  Somehow my hair was driving me nuts.  Feeling very unhappy with it figuring it needed to be cut/colored something. One day in a fit of PMS I decided to put in some demi-permanent color I had lying around and accidentally turned it red.  That was a whole other headache but in hindsight I now know I was feeling so disgusted with my hair because it was getting thinner and thinner without me realizing what was happening.  Until on a few occasions looking at recent pictures of myself I could tell I had way less hair than I did before.  The darker hair just accentuated that.  And I was very unhappy and self-conscious about it.  But what could I do?

   

I think wearing a wig has some sort of awkward stigma attached to it, to me it’s always seemed a rather desperate solution to an extreme situation. Like having chemo and having no hair.  That stigma attached to wig wearing makes it feel like that is the only acceptable situation in which to wear a wig.   In the last few months I had been so disgusted with my hair that I threatened to buy a wig several times.  Like that was a big bad scary threat!  Then one day as I lamented again to my husband about my hair and threatened to shave my head and buy a wig for the umpteenth time, my ever level-headed husband calmly said, “honey don’t shave your head… but if you want to buy a wig, then go buy a wig.”  Wow… wait, I can do that? 

So right about this time, I got an interview for a job. The whole wig idea was brand new and now I felt under the gun.  Do I hurry and get a wig for my interview in 2 days?  If I was going to get a wig I better do it now.  Start as you mean to go on, right?  I wouldn’t want to start a job, then show up my 2^nd week wearing a wig would I?  But it was Saturday night and nobody’s open on Sunday.  So for my interview I didn’t have a wig.  I got the job.  And yes I was nervous about starting a new job for the first time in over a decade, but the level of anxiety about wearing a wig my first day was through the roof. 

I stressed the whole weekend until I finally emailed my new boss to say something like, “Dear new boss, so… I don’t want to be that weirdo who shows up for her first day of work in a wig, but… I’m totally going to be that weirdo.”  And she was totally cool about it and emailed me right back to say she understands medical issues and she had ovarian cancer over the summer so don’t even worry about it.  Which was all I needed to feel better about that!

Now that you’ve heard the story, let me share a few of the reasons why I love wearing a wig.

• ·         No more hair envy.  Seriously it’s a thing for those of us with thin hair.
• ·         Improved self-confidence.  You don’t realize what a big impact hair has on your confidence until you don’t have it (or until you do).
• ·         You can take time to style/braid your hair, and leave it in the closet overnight and put it on in the morning. And not have to worry about messing your hair up by sleeping on it
• ·         …or not take time to style it.  I mean it’s pre-styled so you don’t have to do much if you don’t want to
• ·         You can take it off to braid it in super cute styles (much harder to braid on your own head upside down and backwards!)
• ·         You can sleep in in the morning since you don’t have to wake up earlier to wash/dry/style your hair
• ·         Same thread, you can be ready to run out the door in the time it takes you to throw on some mascara and a wig.  Oh, and pants.  Pants too.
• ·         I’ve never been a big fan of my own hair.  It’s always been super fine and thin.  It hasn’t been long since 8^th grade and if I ever tried to grow it longish it just ends up looking scraggly and stringy and sad. My wig hair is long and thick and luxurious.  I would NEVER be able to grow hair like that.
• ·         Compliments from strangers.  Regarding style, color, etc.  I get them a lot.  Hair compliments are not a thing I’m used to.
• ·         More colors.  I am blonde.  Maybe it’s a case of the grass being greener but I’ve always wished I wasn’t a blond.  Being a freakishly pale person, I feel like blonde hair kind of washes me out even more.  If you have dark hair you can easily go blonde.  And even when it grows out the roots are cool.  And definitely acceptable.  But blonde roots are a different story.  You don’t look like your roots are growing out.  You look like you have a long bald spot on your head running the whole length of your part.  It’s not a good look.  So if I wanted to go darker, I would need near-constant touch ups to cover the roots.  If you’ve ever been my hairdresser (which several of you have) you know I am not that great at being a regular client to have my hair done.  Which leads me to…
• ·         Your style doesn’t grow out.  You know when you get an awesome haircut/color, and a week or two later it starts to go downhill because your hair is always growing?  Not a problem with a wig.
• ·         You can change your style as easily as switching out your wig.  Want to have long hair? Done.  Want to go short next week? Ok.  Wait, want to be long again?  Yep. 

There are way more good things I’m forgetting.  Like it’s basically awesome.

But before you think it’s all butterflies and tulip petals and all go run out to buy your own wig, I will tell you some of the negatives in the interest of full disclosure.  

The only weird-bad thing about wearing a wig is worrying what other people will think.  That is lame, but really, if I had such a negative stigma in my own head about it, I could only imagine what others who don't know my story would think.  And it shouldn’t matter but it does.  It was more the benign judgement that all people are capable of.  It was the subtle disapproval.  The realization of the wig stigma that we all have.  But I’m over it. So if you subtly disapprove of me, well I don’t much care.  However, I don’t like to make people feel uncomfortable.  At all.  It stresses me out.  

I’ve had a few awkward moments.  I’ve tried to let facebook do most of the work for me.  I’ve been open there about wearing a wig.  But what about those people you haven’t seen in a while and aren’t friends with on facebook?  For example, we switched schools this year and I now work at our new school.  I had a training one day at a company that is over all the local charter schools in the area.  And guess who was there?  Both the office ladies from the old school.  I was not mentally prepared for that.  So that got to me and messed with my head pretty bad.  Where I should’ve felt awesome cuz hey look, I lost 25 pounds since you last saw me, I was only thinking about, hey look I’m wearing a wig now.  Awkward.

It’s the look that flashes across people’s faces of, there is something majorly different about you and I don’t feel comfortable asking about it.  That’s the situation I haven’t mastered yet.  As I see it, here are my options: 

 1) say “hey you! How’s it going!? I’m wearing a wig!” 

 2) say “hey you!  How’s it going?” <Register their look of confusion and split second hesitation> and… wait for them to ask.  

 Which is right?  I don’t know.  It seems weird to go up to someone and say “how are you? I’m wearing a wig!”  But a lot of people would feel awkward asking about it if they haven’t seen you in a while and they are just a casual acquaintance.  I know I would.  Bless those people who are the type of people who can say, hey are you wearing a wig?  I’ve had one. ONE person do that.  And I wanted to hug her.

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Present Day: I’m now left trying to figure out how to end this post!

All in all I would say the positives far, far outweigh any negatives.  If people feel awkward, well they are just going to have to either ask me about it, or get over it.  Life is too short, people!

And I tell you if I had known how much fun wearing a wig could be, I would have started a long time ago.  For those of you with gorgeous hair, I hope you know how lucky you are!  And for those of you with hair that you wish was something else (thicker, curlier, longer, blonder, whatever!)  you might try a trip to the wig store.  It’s fun just to try a bunch on and see them.  Take pictures!  I will leave you with some of the pictures I have taken over the past few months.

what people at work think i look like

fun at the wig store!

Storm from the X-Men wig

it's easier to do fun braids when you can take your hair off

my family is awesome

now I can wear darker lipstick?  wigs are fun!