A couple of weeks ago, I went for a walk with my friend T, a neighborhood mom who was also recently diagnosed with breast cancer and is now done with her chemo treatment (yay!). From time to time, T and I meet up to get our power-walk-induced endorphins and support each other with exercise, deep conversations and a splash of light-and-fluffy girl talk.
It was a lovely Fall morning, and we met at the bottom of Mills Canyon Trail —1.5 miles of fragrant woods and lush green surroundings tucked into the heart of our neighborhood (enough to distract us from our worries, while remaining minutes away from our favorite coffee shop and the groceries store).
T and I were in the middle of our morning walk when, as expected, we found ourselves talking about IT: our H-A-I-R.
“Is it still shedding? Has the shedding stopped? Has it gotten thinner? Will it grow back? Will it stay thin forever? Will it grow stronger?” In a nutshell, your typical chemo-girl talk… And, then, T mentioned she was keeping all her sheddings in a bag.
“What?!” I jumped in a mix of shock, disbelief and horror.
“Why would you do that?” I asked.
T calmly looked at me and gave me her very logical reasoning, “It’s the way I know for real how much hair I am losing.”
“You need to stop doing that,” I sort of scolded her. “Stop staring at the hair you are shedding. Focus on all the beautiful hair you still have and throw that bag away.”
“I know, I know…” T replied, (although I am not sure the bag found its way into the garbage can).
This got me thinking (putting T’s story aside): Does staring at our (chemo) casualties help us better process our (cancer) fear, or does it get in the way of moving on?
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, and there is a little bit of both (in chemo and in life).
They say the pain of losing something (or someone) valuable is psychologically twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining (or retaining) a valuable someone or thing. Simply put, we tend to prefer not to lose, than to win. This is known as loss aversion, and is closely followed by its off-shoot cousin loss attention (that is, the tendency to allocate a higher degree of attention to the losses incurred in a given situation, than the gains we extract).
In the matter of Cancer vs the Hair, even when we are fortunate enough to retain a significant portion of hair, we can’t help but stare at the locks that fall out each time we run our fingers through our manes. And in the matter of Life Losses vs Gains, our behavior is pretty much the same.
One might argue this is a way to face reality and avoid denial, and there is some truth to that. But, there is a fine line which separates loss-attention as a coping mechanism leading to acceptance, from the one which leads us to being stuck.
I was discussing these thoughts with nurse J. during my most recent Herceptin session, when a former chemo patient sitting in a corner said “Let IT go!”
This got me thinking about my own loss-processing mechanism… Have I been carrying around my own bag of sheddings (in chemo and beyond)?
With the Holiday Season approaching, my professional identity in pseudo limbo and the up-and-down dynamics of our new family structure, over the course of the last few weeks I have found myself thinking about what used to be and this year will not. And, alas! I got sucked into the world of ruminating and soliloquizing, spinning around in circles and getting tangled up in my own train of thought.
Sigh…
Then, I connected the dots and got hit by an insight: Has my own loss-attention bias been getting the best of me, losing sight of the half-full glass and preventing me from moving on?
True, part of my hair has thinned out, BUT it is no longer shedding, AND, ironically, the newly grown hair seems to be darker and stronger than the locks I lost.
True, I cannot go back to lawyering yet, BUT, in the meantime, a refreshingly bold creative writing identity has surfaced, AND, in the process, I am healing and helping other women navigate their own chemo-walk.
True, the Holidays will be different, but different does not mean sad or lonely. A mighty army of loved ones have shown up for me and will be gathering around my table. I am healthy and will be ringing in the New Year cancer free. And there are many Holiday Seasons laying ahead, waiting for that joyful midnight toast.
Losses (of hair, or otherwise) are scary, because they leave us with a void —a void of hair, a void of structure, a void of love… But we have to face that void in order to process it. We have to embrace that very void in order to heal.
A void is not merely the “absence” of something, but also accepting the “presence” of an opportunity.
That is when we stop spinning around in circles.
That is when we begin to move on.
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