Why I Shaved My Head (this time)…

I was talking to a friend the other day. I told her that I was craving a hot dog with slaw on it. She started telling me that my body (my liver specifically) was probably detoxing and releasing the toxins and emotions from the last time I did have a hot dog with slaw. That was over 3 years ago. But I didn’t rule the idea out as crazy or dismiss it. I actually started thinking about it more and more. And lots of things started to make sense. Thinking about how the liver can hold on to toxins for any amount of time got me to start thinking about how energy effects us. Specifically negative energy. There is a story in the bible of Samson losing all his strength when his hair is cut. I’m not a religious person in any sense of the word, but there are lots of cultures that believe that your hair holds your power. It holds energy and memories and feelings. So I started thinking back to when I started growing my hair out. It’s been about 3 years. Then I started thinking about what has happened in those three years.

In no particular order, I lost a job writing that I absolutely loved and I haven’t been able to replace it with something equally soul satisfying. A man I loved was beaten into a vegetative state and is pretty much still there today in a prison hospital. One of my best friends passed away suddenly. I found my soulmate and had my heart broken by him numerous times because timing is everything and ours is not right yet. And the list goes on and on if that wasn’t enough negativity to fill a lifetime. And so, I decided I needed to get rid of those negative emotions and memories and feelings. I needed to find a ritualistic way to shed, quite literally, all the things that weigh me down on a daily basis despite my superhuman ability to continue to smile.

I’ve shaved my hair off before. Once after a break up which seems to be a thing, we, women do when we have a drastic change in our lives. It is usually reflected on our head or in our weight. The other times I shaved my hair off, I just liked the way it felt and the way it looked. So this time when I did it, it wasn’t a big deal. It was very premeditated and deeply thought about before hand. I’ve actually been thinking about it for weeks. And then, as I was putting twists in my son’s hair the other night, I decided it was time. I tried to enlist him to help, but he said he did not want to be responsible if I hated it and had a breakdown because of it. So I let him off the hook and slept on it just in case he was right and I really did want to keep my hair. But when I woke up, the urge to make it go away was still there. So I tiptoed into his room, quietly asked him where the clippers were, and went to the bathroom to get rid of the last bit of negativity I had hanging around (literally).

It wasn’t unlike a ceremony. I took a deep breath. Said goodbye to all the negative energy and feelings and memories attached to every strand and I turned the clippers on. As they buzzed in my ear and long flowing strands of hair fell into my fingers, I started feeling lighter. More focused. I started feeling more like myself. Even though most days I have no fucking clue who I am. But I felt like her by the time I shut the clippers off. I don’t know what this means for the rest of my life. I’m not 100% committed to thinking about it. I just know that for right now, the negativity is gone. I feel happy with me. And now I can start working on getting to a place on the outside that also makes me happy.