Women's Aging Issues: when Your Hairdresser and Gynecologist Retire

Ladies, as we age, we experience many changes and traumas. Our children leave, older relatives start to die, menopause arrives, young men start calling us "ma'am," we are at constant war with our weight, our hair turns grey, and we start forgetting what we got up for before we even finish getting up!

But can anything be so traumatic as when our gynecologist and hairdresser retire on us? I don't know about you, but I trusted these people so implicitly, they know things about me that my mother, husband and the IRS don't. Just the thought of letting someone else give me a pap test, or get near my hair with shears is enough to drive me back to drinking! And so, when both of these people who were so much a part of my heart retired this year, I found myself, at age 56, dealing with yet another aging issue -- having to search for a new gynecologist and hairdresser.

As a sweet young thing in my 20s, I was lucky enough to find Dr. Jay, an ob-gyn with whom I could bond. Let's face it, this person treats your most personal health needs and you need to be comfortable with him. He's been places even your husband hasn't! He would joke with me as he performed his examinations, taking my mind off the procedures, and afterwards in his office he'd give me the report, and ask if anything else was on my mind. And there always was. I could tell him anything. He was never judgmental, and always truthful with me. He was of the opinion that your general physical and mental health had a lot to do with your gynecological health. He watched me age from a flirty little wench to a jaded 50-year-old. He always elicited a smile from me, and I felt 25 in his presence. He got me through two operations, birth-control pill side effects, sex and emotional problems, weight gain, and was more in tune with all my physical ailments than any of my general practitioners. When I was tardy with my checkups, his office called and said "Doctor Jay said for you to get your butt in here." When my brothers died, he was more help than any therapist. And imagine my surprise when he personally called me out of the blue to see how I was doing after reports of my breast cancer treatment started trickling in to him from my other doctors.

Around the same time I found Dr. Jay, I found Bob, my hairdresser. My Mom went to him, and he spent most of the day attempting to make middle-aged women resemble Carol Brady, or perming elderly ladies into walking poodles. But after burning myself with electric curlers, and tired of getting up at 5:00 a.m. to do my hair, I decided to get it cut into a style that didn't require so much maintenance. "Do you KNOW you have curly hair?" he said as he started to cut the long, thick mane that had been pulled straight by the weight of itself. Well, sure I did, but I wanted long hair. All through high school, my mother cut my hair into that short "baby doll" style popular in the 60s, a style in which other girls actually went out and got wigs. Numerous times, I had people try to "pull off my wig," and boy did it hurt! So when I married and moved out, I let my hair grow. Bob managed to find me a style that was timeless, still had length, and that fell into place perfectly after just washing, letting it dry and shaking my head. The electric curlers were trashed. He constantly told me he wished he had known me when he did demonstrations. He respected my length. Most hairdressers see someone with hair like mine and their scissors jump right out of the jar into their hand. For 30 years, he refused to let me tip him. And when I came in crying when I was convinced my hair was thinning due to chemo, he took me out of turn, and calmed my fears.

Both these men were my confidantes. They saw me through the joys and sorrows of life. They were there during my divorce, my remarriage, the death of my brothers, my cancer. They knew every stage of my daughter's life, sharing in my joy as she graduated high school and college and eventually married. And when the grandchildren arrived, they were sincerely interested in their progress, and appropriately complimentary at the baby pictures I pulled from my purse, laughing over the fact that I was now a grandma.

This year, Bob retired in February and Dr. Jay retired in May. I am in the process of seeking out a new doctor and hairdresser. I don't need a gyno checkup until January, so that is not so immediate. But my hair is just growing wild, and has been up in a mane for a month now because I just can't bring myself to let anyone else touch it except my mother, who she says she can't handle my hair at this length.

I know I will never have a relationship with the new doctor and stylist like I did with Dr. Jay and Bob. Those relationships took more years to build than I probably have left on this earth. I am heartbroken that they are no longer a part of my life. I guess I loved these men. Who knew?

Men might say, how silly, so her gynecologist and hairdresser retired, big deal! But you ladies out there, admit it -- you understand.

You know.