“Jump scare, I’m Bald.”
That was the text that went out to my best friends a little over a week ago with a picture of myself fresh out the barbershop. The look on my face was a little bit of apprehension mixed with “what have I done” eyes. I did not (yet) like the sight of myself like that. It felt like too much face. I felt exposed. And yet I felt free.
If you’ve been around anytime in the last couple of years, you know that my life has been in a perpetual state of grieving.
Whether it was grieving the loss of my carefully curated California life that was abrupt taken from me when the pandemic happened, grieving the loss of the job I liked well enough but had to quit because the supervisor I had chipped at my self esteem so much that I was beginning to become unrecognizable to myself, the loss of certain friendships, the loss of some dreams like going back to get my PhD, the death of my last living grandparent, or the death of the cousin who felt like a little sister from earlier this year. So much to grieve. And all of the grief made a home in my body.
I don’t know if we talk enough about the cloak of heaviness that shows up in ones body as a constant companion when life becomes a series of heartbreaks, one-after-the-other. How grief makes your smile a little less bright, your wrinkles a little more prominent, your face a little less “you.”
After the “big one,” the losing the sister-cousin one, I decided to live. What is it about death that forces you to weigh your options about life? My options were: I could continue to be a dead girl walking, letting life have its way with me because nothing was safe. Or I could make the harder choice to slowly put one foot in front of the other and open myself up to life again.
I chose life, and I knew somewhere on my body I would have to wear this evidence of my new commitment to living. At first I considered getting another tattoo, but it did not feel quite right. I knew what I needed to do was shave my head.
On the day I made the decision to follow what I knew my soul was asking from me and let the hair go, I felt the most free I had felt in years. It is probably important to know that I did not (yet) feel beautiful. It struck me that before the 3am decision to take a pair of scissors to my long locs, I felt gorgeous. I had some box braids in a color that sparked joy and beauty was something that had felt very accessible to me. But in the matter of a few hours, after the scissors, the washing, the shrinking, the shaving. I no longer felt beautiful. All I felt was too seen. Too exposed. Ugly.
This was not my first rodeo at a big chop, although this was the lowest buzz cut I had ever had, I knew it would take an adjustment. And still I was freaked out my how immediate I had gone from a mostly solid sense of self to scrunching up my face in mild disgust every time I saw myself in the mirror.
In those first few hours, I had to lean into the affirmations from my loved ones. That got me through day 1. I was so unnerved by the sight and feel of being too seen on day 1 that I went out and bought several new wigs, and proceeded to immediately wear one of them for the rest of the work day.
By the end day 2, still unnerved, I reached out to a friend who is more like a big sister. She also rocks a bald cut and I find her absolutely beautiful. I knew I needed someone else to help me see myself through a lens I did not yet have access to. She gave me a lot of affirmation, but also challenged me to learn from these first few days. To lean into the other adjectives outside of “beautiful” that felt accessible to me as a way to describe myself. To see this as an opportunity to collect data on myself and to practice seeing myself fully without any distractors.
Day 3 and 4 felt better. I started feeling comfortable enough to take selfies again. Comfortable enough to FaceTime my friends and actually look at my reflection staring back at me. Comfortable enough to attend zoom video calls with clients bald.
By day 5, my confidence had returned to a baseline that felt familiar and safe.
Its now been a week since I took a pair of scissors to my braids. Since I begun my journey into the bald baddie committee and I’m excited about how free I feel. I am surprised by how “womanly” it feels to move through the world face first. I am kind of grateful at how quickly my body and mind adjusted to seeing myself as beautiful with no hair on my head.
Here’s to whatever this journey is here to teach me about me.
I love it! I love how freeing getting my buzz cut felt and I’m happy to hear you’re feeling that freedom / beauty in your body because you are so beautiful and you already know I love this cut on you.