Psychotherapy by Hair

Before I get into the subject of this post ... many of you have sent me messages asking about the new medications I began last weekend. The side effects from one of them were so bad that I had to discontinue it ... I couldn't keep any food down, and for a gal with diabetes, that's not a good thing. The other drug I am tolerating fairly well, except that it causes my heart to race from time to time and has affected my appetite to the point that I've had to set an alarm on my phone to remind me to eat. I saw my doctor again on Wednesday, and I started on another different med today in place of the one that made me so violently ill. I've been queasy and dizzy all day, but so far, no puking. Thanks to all of you who've prayed for me over the last week ... your prayers mean more to me than you will ever know.

For the last 15 years or longer, I've paid a monthly visit to a gal who is, in my opinion, the greatest psychotherapist on the planet. She doesn't have a bunch of diplomas hanging on the wall of her office; in fact, her office is far from what you would picture a normal therapist's office to look like. She does all of her counseling while she stands and I sit in a chair, and most of the time, she stands behind me. I can see her face in the mirror on the wall in front of me as she speaks. She is always anxious to hear about my life, and often I wonder if she has a list of questions to ask me that are swirling in her mind when I walk in the door. She's an awesome listener, and she doesn't hesitate to chastise me when I'm either doing something I shouldn't be doing or not doing something I should be doing. She is wise far beyond her years, and she has amazing gifts of discernment and honesty. Oh, and in addition to all of her counseling skills, she's also been cutting or perming or coloring my hair for all those years as well ... and not once has she ever messed up my hair, not one single time.

I've written before about how I haven't been leaving my house much on the weekends ... OK, not at all unless I absolutely have to. But since I'm currently sporting my porcupine hair style, I have to get my hair cut every three weeks or so and today was haircut day. I started dreading going out in public from the minute my feet hit the floor this morning and even contemplated calling and cancelling my appointment. I knew, however, that next Saturday I probably wouldn't want to get out either, and by then my hair would resemble a porcupine who had stuck his paw in an electrical socket. So I forced myself to take a shower, put on my Tennessee Valley Railroad cap and headed to the salon. And as she has for over 15 years, Lola greeted me with a smile and walked me back to her chair and for the next half-hour or so, she dispensed her form of psychotherapy ... her sweet and tender psychotherapy by hair.

Weekends are extra rough for me ... they intensify the isolation I now feel, they quadruple the loneliness that pervades my heart, they remind me of how drastically I have changed over the last year and a half, they scream to me of relationships lost. Weekends are the times when the silence is most often overwhelming ... the silence in my home and the silence in my heart. Weekends are the days when I spend more time in bed than out, because if I'm asleep, I don't have to think or feel. But this morning ... this morning, I got dressed and I went to get my hair cut. This morning, I smiled as Lola talked. This morning, even if only for a few minutes ... this morning, my spirits were lifted by my hair-cutting psychotherapist ... my spirits were lifted by my friend.