Keeping up appearances

There was a moment, brief but vivid in memory, shortly after I was diagnosed with breast cancer, when I wondered whether I would stop caring what I look like.

I’ve always liked to look good. (That’s ‘what I consider to be good’ rather than ‘fresh out of Vogue’ good. I know my limits.) I always wear clothes that go and are in good condition and (I think) suit me. I spend a lot of time and a reasonable (i.e. probably unreasonable) amount of money on my clothes and shoes and accessories. Big occasions call for a great deal of sartorial consideration. A trip through an airport invariably means a stop at the Mac counter, my hair rarely goes for more than 6 weeks without a good cut (except for the Hair Hiatus of early 2009, obviously), and other hairy bits are regularly shaven. (The appearance of the scars in my armpit improved no end when I accidentally shaved the scar tissue off when on shower-autopilot not long after my operation. That was definitely a ‘no pain, no gain’ moment, though. I wouldn’t recommend it.)

But I am aware of people shuffling through this world with a different attitude to their appearance. Gravy stains on my t-shirt? Well, the rest of it’s clean. Trousers and top don’t match? Well, they’re both floral aren’t they? Hair pulled back in an elastic band, to keep it out of the way, eyebrows that meet in the middle…. I wondered whether I would become like this. Not a low-level tramp, you understand, just someone who wasn’t much bothered about what they looked like. I thought that I might become less interested in the external; I thought I might develop a less superficial attitude.

Well, it hasn’t happened. I still hang out at make-up counters in airports and have an awful lot of shoes. I think I’m glad. As I get older – I’ll be 39 on 1 July – I do find myself in shops saying ‘Ooh, that looks comfy’ and ‘That’s pretty but the finish is very poor’. I have recently been heard to remark, ‘I don’t care what I look like, so long as I’m warm’, something that I thought hilarious and exactly the sort of thing I would NEVER say when my Grandma used to say it. But these are more to do with age, I think, than cancer fallout.

But although my attitude hasn’t changed, some aspects of my appearance have. I’ve been thinking about all this a bit lately, so over the next week or so you’ll find several posts here about cancer and the effect it has on the outside of the body. But I’d also like to know what your experience is. Has something in your life changed your appearance, or your attitude to your appearance? If it has, you may want to write a guest blog post here. The deal is:

- 300-500 words

- you can write about anything related to the subject

- I can’t guarantee to use it, but I probably will

- I can’t guarantee to use it immediately, but I probably will sometime

- I will link the post to your blog/Twitter/Facebook page/website if you want me to

- You can have your post published anonymously if you want to, but I need to know who you are

- Copyright remains with you.

If you’d like to write a post, just leave a comment, then email the finished piece to me. If you have photos, you can send those too.