For the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to work out why, when I look in the mirror, I feel as if I don’t quite like what I see, even though I know I actually look better now. I had really long hair before, and I liked it (and spent far too much money on having it highlighted, cut and straightened, obviously) but I never thought it looked really fantastic – now I’ve got a short style that really suits me. I was a bit too skinny before due to a phase of mad health-kick eating and exercise. Now I’ve relaxed a bit and put a little bit of weight back on, I definitely look younger and healthier – everyone says so. In fact, people keep telling me how much better I look now than before I was diagnosed. But I still find myself looking in the mirror and feeling… not sad exactly, but a bit weird. Wistful maybe.

Anyway, reflecting on my reflection… I don’t really care all that much about appearance – I mean, I am interested in looks and fashion. I’m actually quite vain in a lot of ways. And obviously it’s important for self esteem, confidence and generally to retain a sense of ‘self’, but in the grand scheme of things, my mind has been far more preoccupied recently with my health and treatment, and all the really important things around me. My wonderful friends and family, mainly. However, what I do care about quite a lot is the way cancer just popped up, unannounced and uninvited, and took over control of pretty much everything, emotionally as well as physically, so that I suddenly felt like a passenger in my own life. Of course, I know none of us is really in control, but until something happens to remind us of this we can drift along, in blissful ignorance and feeling as if we could steer things in whichever direction we choose. And then up pops a sudden and shocking reminder that actually, no, that’s not the way it is. Stuff is happening. Cancer, to be specific. Bad things are growing inside. Other people are the experts making the decisions. Suddenly I’m the patient. The case study. The person people are saying ‘there but for the grace of God…’ about, for God’s sake! That sense of having absolutely no control or say in what’s happening to me, and the loss of at least an illusion of control over what the future might hold, that’s the bit I really struggle with.

So I realised that when I look in the mirror, it’s not that I don’t like the way I look – I do, actually, I think I look pretty good! And I’m not majorly, majorly concerned with how I look right now anyway. It’s that when I see someone who has short hair that turns out to suit her, and who looks (let’s face it) not quite so drawn and scrawny as before, I’m reminded that these changes in appearance have happened by chance not by design, and that I didn’t get to plan or decide on any of this, it’s just another on the long list of ‘things that happened because I had cancer’. So, another reminder of the lack of control.

However – I think I’ve just realised a couple of things that will really help me out here. Firstly, it was only ever an illusion of control. And whilst ignorance can be blissful, generally I’m more of a fan of being fully informed. So I haven’t actually lost anything, other than something I never really had. People keep talking about the importance of ‘regaining a sense of control’. I’ve been really struggling to do so, and it’s bothered me. But maybe that’s not what I need. Maybe I need to be comfortable with the idea that I wasn’t in control in the first place. In which case, things haven’t changed quite as much as I thought they had. Secondly, there are always two ways to look at the ‘things that happened because I had cancer’. Ok, so I didn’t choose to cut all my hair off. But, it actually looks better short, and I would quite possibly never have had the courage to lop it all off on the off-chance that I could carry off the pixie look. Some of the things that have happened are obviously less welcome, so I might as well worry about those, and stop looking the gift horse in the mouth. Especially when two people this week have called me Kylie.