Brilliantness!

So ... I now have a new (real hair) wig. I feel MUCH MUCH MUCH more confidant. (I know I sound like an advert ... I can't help it.) It has been tested to the limit. I have slept in it. I have wandered into a December sea in it (I'm impulsive). I have worn it in pigtails. I have worn it down. I have brushed it and brushed it just for the sake of brushing it. It is wonderfully soft. It feels different to a synthetic wig. & the idea of wearing hair someone else grew ... appeals to my sense of the macabre. I want to show it off. The evening before last, I did. I performed poetry at a theatre (open-mic). And, although no-one there knew (presumably) that I was wearing a new wig, so there was no opinion-gauge-ing, I felt A LOT more confident than I would have done otherwise. I wandered up and down outside the train-station on the way there, admiring my reflection in the windows. MOST enjoyable. I strode up onto the stage and (despite the fact that I was actually SHAKING with stage-fright) gave what I consider to have been a successful performance. And that was partly because of my increased confidence. It is also very cool to be able to wander out into the communal hallway for my post without doing anything to my hair. I look forward to cooking for people (because, before, I couldn't go near steam, in case my wig was damaged by the heat - that goes for drinking hot coffee, too). I look forward to worry-free sleepovers - knowing that my wig won't get skewed. I look forward to all sorts of things! Yes, it cost me more than my wigs normally cost. However. I am enjoying every penny of it. So it's worth it.

All of the above is not to say that wearing a real hair wig will be the right choice for everyone. Thus far, though, it seems to be the best choice for me.

I am ONE WEEK PULL FREE! Which deserves capitalisation, methinks. This is a TREMENDOUS improvement for me. And I have done it without really thinking about it. Perhaps I have been super-happy because of my new wig. Perhaps it's because my hair isn't really available to to be pulled out. Perhaps it's because I feel more confident that I am not forever doomed to succumb to the Trich. I don't know. What I do know is that I'm very happy!

Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps...

I am writing this as a (uncustomary) sleeping-tablet slowly kicks in. So ... if I suddenly collapse onto my keyboard in silence and sleep ... or incoherence ... that's why. Tomorrow I have an appointment at the hairdressers. First time in at least 5 years that I've been ... hairdresser ... even in a wig-related fashion. So ... I'm scared. Basically. Why? Because I'm not entirely sure how much it will cost. I assume it will cost far more than I first calculate. And, because this is a major investment for me (whose - perfectly nice - wigs generally cost all of £35) , in case SOMETHING GOES WRONG. The idea that SOMETHING MIGHT GO WRONG haunts just about everything I do. At a vast variance to my less-subconscious protestations of invulnerability. Yes - if the world crumbled to dust at my feet (an extreme possibility - but a possible one) - I might possibly be able, with a disdainful toss of the head, to transcend such a disaster. But really really really I want for this to go well. And I will be being scrutinised by a person for, say, half-an-hour. A frightfully intense inter-communication between myself and a complete stranger. There will be practically no option for me to simply walk out if the whole thing becomes too utterly utter. I will need to keep my mind clear and calm to make whatever decisions need to be made. The responsibility weighs over me like a heavy black cloud. It is at noon. I am not generally even AWAKE by noon! *screams inwardly with a Virginia-Woolf-esque terror in the face of time*. I will be attending the appointment alone. ALONE. No comrade will march in there with me and face whatever has to b e faced, make whatever decisions have to be made, with me. No-one will syncopate their footsteps with mine. No-one will wheel in and out of cafes and murmur things about coffee and suchlike and stare their intensity - and mine - into the sea. For my comrades are GONE. Dispersed between the counties. And I am reading 'The Waves' and the poignancy is heightened. Come to Bournemouth! I exclaim! Come to see the coast! Come to see me! And now when and if these terribly delicately tied-to-one people do kestrel-like strike their talons into my glove (I did say I have taken a sleeping tablet...) then I will be more undamaged, less synthetic, more hopeful. And I hope, wearing a wig all the time, that I will be able to think about it less. Jump out of bed in the morning and RUN AWAY into the city and towards the sea. AWAY from the catatonia of hesitating before I go out. I want to be able to run into sand-emblazoned storms and flick the salt from the ends of my hair as in foams in the air and the people scurry hunched away from the striking of the sand. I want to be able to nuzzle into cushions without synthetic fabrics, slightly frizzed, scratching me like softened barbed wire. Come not closer than us, they seem to say, when people brush my hair but from my face and look at me with a heightened sense of my delicacy, of my breakability. The hesitation is unbearable. I want people not to be frightened of breaking me. I want to be able to be rebellious again and throw myself down to sleep on bombed-church-ed roundabouts, walk through the waves as they smash over my head. Not always to think - what about my wig, what if my wig comes off? This prim hesitancy is an inauthentic shade of malaise - and it is abhorrent to me. I hope I hope I hope they glue it all the way round. So my fingers cannot creep round the edges (hands have played major parts in my dreams of late). They showed me a wig to be half-glued on, though. With a clip at the back. To clip into ... what, exactly? My hair (what there is of it) is very VERY short. So ... we shall have to see about that. Also - would I not still be able to pull my hair out? Would my wig not still move at night? These things can be ... discussed, no doubt. OH OH OH I do hope it will all be alright *hushes the slightly painful attempts of her heart to beat in double time*.