A thread about hair and self esteem:
I had a lockdown haircut last month. My husband agreed to cut off all but 5mm of my collar-length dyed hair. I was curious about what colour it really is these days. It’s turned out to be one of the most profound things I’ve ever done.

Until my thirties, I had Titian red hair: shiny, straight (once permed) and sometimes waist-length. A few years ago, when it started to go white, I dyed it purple, and then scarlet, which was great fun. My hair has always been inseparable from my identity.

Except it hasn’t, I now realise. It actually made me invisible, to myself as well as others. People only ever saw my hair. Someone, introducing me, once said “Look at her hair, you can’t miss her.”

When, a month ago, I suddenly had hardly any hair I realised that, at the age of 54, I have never really looked at my face. Like everyone else, I had only ever seen my hair and didn’t need to look any further.

I have never enjoyed looking at myself. I always thought myself shockingly ugly, unnaturally so. The rare glimpses I allowed myself showed a horribly asymmetrical face with weak and uneven features. I avoided having my photograph taken where possible.

Now that I have no hair to hide behind, I can’t avoid myself. I am learning to let myself see my face. And you know what? It’s nowhere near as bad as I thought.

My self esteem has never been great. You would think that removing what society calls my crowning glory would have me reaching for a paper bag to put over my head when leaving the house. You would think there should be some kind of existential self esteem crisis.

In fact the opposite is true. A month in, I feel better about myself than ever before. I have no need to be what western society calls ‘attractive’. My face has some lines etched into it, and gravity has got the better of bits of it. But it’s OK.

I’ve been trying to draw myself, which is something I’ve never been able to do. Drawing makes you look at what is there, in an objective and uncritical way. It’s the only face I’m ever going to have, and I may as well learn to like it. And I’m starting to do just that.