I have to get ready soon, for an appointment with my Oncologist. Today will be the first time I’ve seen him since finishing Chemo last September. I get to tell him ‘thank you’, and ‘goodbye.’

They say he won’t tell me, ‘Congratulations! You are Cancer free!’ Thanks to my Breast Cancer Journey, I feel more free today in many ways. My current hair color is a good example.

I don’t need proof today, or all the reasons the Cancer is gone. I know it was God.

My daughter dyed my hair this weekend, and it didn’t turn out quite as we planned. My hair is naturally a dark color, so she bleached it, but that got it to a pale orange stage. When she added the purple it literally looked orange, and purple, so yesterday we tried it again.

I was okay with the pale orange and lavender mass, but felt we could do better. She sat me down, and we went through the entire bleaching, toning, and conditioning process once again. In our minds, we were trying to achieve the look in the picture of Repeat If Desired.

After all of that, she dried my hair, and I just sat with it for a minute. She pulled out half a dozen jars of hair color for me to choose from, and asked if I still wanted purple. I didn’t realize I had so many other choices! My daughter has played with the color of her hair a lot, and she showed me a picture of what she looked like with each one. I couldn’t decide.

Which one was best for me? The one that interested me most was a dark green. It was so dark it looked black in the jar. She said that would take my hair back to a very dark color, with just a tinge of emerald, but we had been through so much! Did I want to go back?

I have not been a bleached blonde in my life, that I can remember, so this is new to me. I told her I was going to sit with it for a few days with it just being bleached, and see if I wanted a color. It’s already a color to me, and drastically different than what I had two days ago.

When I was going through Chemo, a lot of people there wore wigs. I never wore one, and just walked around bald. I told her when I walk into the Cancer Center on Monday, people will probably think it’s a wig! It doesn’t matter what people think, I know it’s real.

Maybe that would scare some people, knowing they can’t take it off their head at the end of the day. To be honest, it scared me a little bit too, but which is scarier? Having hair this color, or no hair at all, because I was hairless for a while. It’s not about the hair darling.

It was all about the journey that got me here.

Sitting in a small bathroom, with my daughter for two days. Listening to some of our favorite songs, and talking about life. Giving her the freedom to be creative, and trusting my hair in her hands, are just some of the memories captured by this color. I can always shave my hair, but it’s those moments that remain.