Making Waves

Two or three nights a week, I get a call from the neighbors downstairs, telling me that my kids are being too loud. And it's true. My kids were not made for condo living. With tons of energy and their favorite toy being a basketball hoop, they pretty much ensure that we will never be friends with anyone who lives underneath us. Last night the call came around 8 pm, when my kids were both throwing stomp-on-the-floor temper tantrums at bedtime. I always respond to these calls the same way: "I'm really sorry, I don't know what else to do, I'm trying my best, etc.".

You have no idea how much anguish this causes me. I am not a wave-maker. I don't like confrontation, and I REALLY don't like the thought that someone might not like me.

I know, it's hard to even imagine.

But my neighbor does not like me. The way I live my life has directly affected the way he can live his. Because I can't get my kids to settle down in the evening, he can't relax in his own home. As a result, now I can't relax in my own home. Anytime one of us accidentally drops something or lands with our feet a little too hard on the wood floors, the knot in my stomach gets an extra twist. My husband advocates completely for the kids: "They have a right to play in their home."

Yes, they do. But do we also have a responsibility to respect our neighbors' wishes, at least to some extent?

This is one of the biggest questions I'm dealing with right now. And in case you were wondering, yes--it does have something to do with beauty.

Before I lost my hair, I had some sense of the balance between self-image and responsibility for others. I had my default style, but I could make changes once in awhile if, say, my husband wanted to see me in something I wasn't totally comfortable in.

When I lost all my hair, the lines got blurred. I know it's hard for people to see a bald woman. It's an image associated with sickness or rebellion. It's not attractive to most men. It's not normal, and may therefore be a little frightening for children, especially. Every day I struggle with the need to look normal for everyone else's sake. And, admittedly, to save myself the humiliation of being forced to explain my appearance to people who have made wrong assumptions.

Is this just the burden I have to carry? Do I need to worry about what other people are comfortable with? Or should I leave it to everyone else to work out their own issues and deal with the discomfort my appearance causes?

Ironically, this question causes me the most pain as I work it out with my family. The people I am closest to. Let's take my husband, for example. If he is not attracted to a woman with a bald head, do I have the responsibility to meet his needs by keeping my head covered? And my kids, do I need to protect them from embarrassment by covering my head when their friends are around?

It seems easy to say "No way, that's ridiculous. You should just be yourself." But this is a culturally-determined response. As Americans, we are very aware of our individual rights and freedoms. In other cultures, people are intertwined, connected in ways we don't always understand.

The hard thing here is that I have an illness which has only affected me cosmetically. And there are easy ways to make myself look "normal". If I had lost a limb and was functioning just fine without it, would it be reasonable to expect me to get a prosthetic limb if someone close to me had admitted that seeing my stump made them uncomfortable?

Where do I stop trying to meet the need for comfort and start letting people go through their own journey of acceptance?

How do I redefine beauty in a way that reflects my desire to be connected with people, while at the same time refusing to give in to standards of beauty that were arbitrarily set?