milestone

tuesday night marked the first time i left the house without my wig on in...something like 4-5 months.

gretchen and i went to crossfit (sanfranciscocrossfit.com) for our scheduled tuesday night workout. i went without a hat. without a wig. no one recognized me, asked me if this was my first class. coach kelly was so excited to see it. asked if he could make a big deal about it to the group. i hesitated...thought about...and said it was okay.

so we had a painful workout of all this running, all these kettleball lifts, and pullups.

and then at the end, kelly had us in a circle. recognizing one person's first crossfit workout. recognizing great workouts of a few people. and then he said..."we have a really big deal tonight, though. one person among us came out in public for the first time in 4 months without a wig on! meghan kearney! " everyone turned towards me and started clapping. i interrupted them, though. i felt this desperate need to explain..."yeah, but kelly, you have to explain why i was wearing a wig. it wasn't just my choice. i just finished chemo." and everyone started clapping again. it was really sweet.

afterwards people came up to me. told me my hair looked cute. that they never would've known. congratulated me on having completed chemo. it was a really nice feeling.

and i feel like it'll really help me to stay motivated at crossfit. i had been feeling a bit like a slacker because i'm so out of shape - thanks to just being lazy and thanks to chemo. but now that everyone knows about the chemo - i feel both like i'm allowed to be a bit of a slacker and like i'm not allowed to be a slacker at all. it'll give me that extra motivation to work my ass off when i feel like i can't anymore.

in the same way my friends helped welcome me into the bald-world, it was a really nice welcome into a wig-free world.