Letting Go

I hold onto things. It’s my way.

Bank statements, signed yearbooks, partially filled journals, scratched up leather purses, clothes I’m going to fit into again one day, cute shoes I would love to wear if only they didn’t hurt my feet so badly, photos of people I don’t even remember…I still have my tax records from my college years, report cards from elementary school, expired driver’s licenses and passports.

Call it sentimental. Call it research for my book. Call it the hoarding gene. Any which way you dice it, it’s over the top. And it has been weighing me down and holding me back—which is why I decided to make 2009 My Year of Letting Go.

I started the year with a colon cleanse, to let go of the toxins in my body. Bye bye holiday sugar, fat, alcohol, and caffeine.

Next I played with a shredder to safely and securely let go of an entire filebox of unnecessary papers. Good riddance paystubs from old jobs and utility bills from prior residences.

In February and March, I let go of two dozen shopping bags full of used-up and useless material possessions. So long moth-eaten sweaters, faded and bleach-stained t-shirts, blister-causing heels, tapered-legged suits, and many, many miscellaneous never-gonna-be-used-in-my-lifetime household items.

It was working. After dozens of trips to the alley recycling bin and neighborhood Goodwill, my load was lighter, for sure. But I was still feeling burdened by old grudges, wounds, anger, other people’s expectations, and a few societal norms I no longer believed but by which I continued to measure my success.

To let go of these long-held patterns and deeply rooted belief structures, I was going to need the help of a professional. Enter licensed practitioner Joanne Wambeke of Colorado Healing Services.

In our session, Joanne used the Japanese healing art of jin shin jyutsu to find – and treat – my internal energy blocks. Not acupuncture, but accupressure. Not needles, but the gentle pressure of fingertips. I’m sure it worked, because the longer I lay on the massage table in the dark, listening to soothing music, the more relaxed I felt. Farewell, accumulated energy. Hello, natural energy flow and clearer thinking.

The harmonization of energy and pulsation was followed by a secret Letting Go ceremony, involving the release of my inhibiting beliefs into a small body of water. Well, at least the beliefs I could think of in a 15-minute meditation and fit on a small piece of dissolving paper, which was released into a water-filled kitchen sink. The voices of an overbearing boss, judgmental relative, and lying ex faded and slipped out of reach.

I’ve taken my Letting Go goal very seriously – except, it seems, when it comes to my hair. Sure, now I talk openly about my alopecia when once I went to great lengths to hide it. Yes, now I laugh about being called a pirate when once I couldn’t even say the word “wig” because I was so ashamed of my hair loss. Certainly, I’ve come a long way.

Actually, I’ve come so far that it took me awhile to realize I was still holding onto anything related to my hair.

I was researching the official definitions of alopecia and all the types—areata, totalis, universalis—so I could explain the differences here in the blog.

Always, I’ve been an areata, the type of alopecia characterized by patchy hair loss. It started with one small, quarter-sized bald spot. Then the spot multiplied, and multiplied again, like rapidly dividing cells, creating one big bald patch on the left side of my head, another on the right side, another in the back. But still, patchy: large bald patches paired with smaller patches of hair. That is, until this year, my Year of Letting Go.

Here on the blog, and to anyone who'd listen, I’ve been going on about my three remaining hairs, posting pictures of them, joking about them, carefully pulling them out from behind the scarf before I head out each day, all the time ignoring the fact that three hairs no longer qualifies as a patch. Three wiry hairs means I have transitioned from alopecia areata to alopecia totalis, or total loss of scalp hair.

It shouldn’t matter. I mean, I’m okay being a bald girl. I am. I don’t expect to get my hair back. Ever. I’m okay with that. And it’s not like anything has changed from yesterday. I only had three wiry hairs yesterday. I’ve had three wiry hairs all year, which sounds like a long time until you realize I started losing my hair in 1994. I’ve been an areata for 15 years, and now suddenly, for no apparent reason, I’ve become a totalis.

Before I can even accept my new label, I find myself worrying about slippery slopes, and transitioning from totalis to universalis, which is a total loss of body hair. No more eyebrows. No more eyelashes. No more stray hair on my leg. Not that stray hairs on my leg are a big problem. But still…

All of a sudden I’m more acutely aware of a loose lash, the shape of my eyebrow. Is it happening now? Will it happen soon? Will I know it when it happens? Will I see a clump of lashes on my mascara wand one day? Should I stop using mascara? Can you stop the progression? Can you slow it?

And here I am again, holding onto hairs, and beliefs about their significance, and the comfort of old labels.

I feel a knot in my chest. My heart rate rises. This is not good. I must take action immediately.

So today, in My Year of Letting Go, I am publicly letting go. I’m letting go of my need to know, to control, and to label. I'm letting go of my belief that eyebrows and lashes somehow make me more normal. I'm letting go of wanting to be normal. Even better, I'm letting go of my definition of what it means to be normal. Again.

It is what it is. And whatever it is, I’ll be okay.

© 2009 Christy Bailey