On doing that which you never thought you were capable of …

…and proving yourself joyfully wrong

Shaving my head. Something I never thought I could or would do. And yet, I did it. Just over a month ago. Shaving my hair started as an intrusive thought. It is one of those thoughts that I think most people with long hair toy with. I've done big cuts before. It's fun to change things up. But I have never shaved my head. I have thought about it before and simply concluded that I could never do something like that. Milly Bobby Brown did an interview once on a press tour for Stranger Things and she was asked about the experience of shaving her head. It brought her so much delight and she explained with so much joy that the feeling of rain on her head was such a profound feeling. That always stuck with me. The freedom that it seemed to offer. The whole experience has a lot of feelings involved. There is a liberation like no other to take scissors to your hair and hold your locks in your hand. I think that is a wild experience. It feels primitive. If you are like me, you have fallen down many youtube rabbit holes, and people with long hair shaving their hair is a classic rabbit hole. The rollercoaster of emotions is something to witness. There is laughter. Laughter as a relief. That release is often followed by a real emotion of weight and joy and often expressed by tears of joy. I didn't cry when I shaved my head. It simply hadn't settled in yet. It felt manic and bold and like an experience that was entirely mine to have. Mostly because I didn't tell anyone I was doing it. This was important to me. It is also selfish, but it was how I wanted to do it. So that it could be mine and mine alone. And so that I could capture the priceless reactions of those that I FaceTimed after the fact. See Riley's reaction below. 

I'm getting ahead of myself a bit. Two months ago I had a plan to grow my hair out to be very very long. At some point, right before my mother and I traveled to Belfast, I had the intrusive thought to shave my head. Honest to God I don't know where that thought came from. But for the next week, every single space thought in my brain was taken up with the idea of shaving my head. Every photo and reflective surface became an opportunity to ask myself the question, "what would I look like with a shaved head?”. Then I got back from Ireland and decided that I could not live my life without having this experience. I'd like to say that my conclusion was I wouldn't know what I would look like until I did it, but that wasn't the case. I knew I'd look good. BUT I didn't know I'd look THIS GOOD. What a relief. The biggest variable was my head shape. I really didn't know what was under there. I knew it had the power to make or break the look, and yet I took the chance. So I went to my bathroom, took scissors, and a tiny bikini razor and went to work. 40 minutes later my head was shaved. It took a while since my razor was so tiny and definitely not made for this much surface area. I was in a good mood. Perhaps a bit disconnected from the power of the experience.

Truly what followed were interesting observations about myself... some big questions... who am I really? What am I really? No clue. It is confusing. Luckily, I welcome confusion. We should ask ourselves what makes us who we are. And we should reassess if the things we have been telling ourselves are things we still align with. The experience of shaving my head led to more questions like this. What makes me me? For so long my long red hair was my identifying factor. And I loved that. So who was I when that was taken away? Looking in the mirror felt strange? I felt like I was looking at a stranger. But when I wasn't looking in the mirror I was walking around with the same internal thoughts and feelings, like I had not changed at all, and then *boom* mirror, the stranger is here. Who let her in? I did. And I am so happy I did. I'm more used to it now. I let the stranger stay for a while. I examine her. Get to know her. Sit in the discomfort of realizing that you do not know yourself as much as you thought you did. That is a weird feeling. One of my goals on this planet is to have as many life experiences as possible. To be able to say that I did all I could think of doing with this body and this life. Now I can say that I shaved my head.

I'm enjoying the practical benefits of having a shaved head. Not having to tie my hair up constantly, keeping me cool, being able to easily check for ticks on the farm, the quick washing. It is simple. I like simple.

My only other concern going into making the decision to shave my head was how the growing out process would go. I'm pretty pessimistic. I think I'll have the buzzcut for a while. But when I do decide to start growing it out... I suppose that will be a whole other learning process, and a lesson in patience.

That is all for now. My thoughts on this, overall positive. Glad I did it. And glad I did it myself. I wanted to share this with a post because it is exciting. It means a lot to me. And it confirms that which I have long known to be true. You can't think yourself into acting differently. You can only act your way into acting differently. If you want to be the type of person that shaves her head you have to shave your head. That is the only way. If you want to be the type of person that quits their job and works on farms, you have to quit your job and work on farms. If you want to be the type of person that has a blog/newsletter… listens to Taylor Swift… Loves unconditionally. If you want to be anything, there is only one way. Do it. 

Buzzcut Becca Era

All my love

Becca