So I shaved my head a month ago. I did it coinciding with my Father's death.
Side note: I say the phrase "My Father's Death" more than I thought I would. I guess it's better that it's replacing the phrase "my father's dying." But in the case of both phrases, it just helps me bring normalcy to my life. Something has changed and instead of being afraid of the change, it has helped me to just go with it.
I shaved my head for numerous reasons:
1) My Brother and I agreed to do it together;
2) I wanted to mark my Father's Death in some way;
3) It seemed spiritual in a way that wouldn't be offensive to my Dad. My Dad's family were Buddhists, even though he was raised Catholic and my father didn't like the Catholic Church anyway;
4) It was a reflection of the fact that I felt different. I changed irrevocably after my Dad died and it was a way for me to acknowledge that change. Plus, people would tell me that I looked so different and even though they might not know my Dad had just died or knew how to talk about it, it gave me support that they knew something had changed.
Later, I found out that it was a Buddhist thing specifically and that men shaved their heads after someone died to remove their vanity, since so much of our vanity is related to our hair.
That was definitely true for me. Confession: I think having long hair is a pain in the ass. My hair is thick and straight. When it gets too long, it starts to look like a wig. Once it gets so long that it hangs there, it's annoying because it's just hanging there. It's just flat and annoying. But everyone told me that I have such beautiful hair and told me never to cut it. I do have a nice head of hair, true. This is a fact I was unaware of growing up because my parents liked me to have it short and my hair short is bad. It's spiky and unruly.
In college, I became the guy with the hair. When I had to cut it for a show I did, people were in shock that I would cut my hair off. Ever since then it became this thing: people LOVE my hair. I always get complements on it.
But something funny has happened...
I shaved my head ,thinking that I was removing my vanity and doing something intensely personal, spiritual and ancestral. But now people love the shaved head!
Two of my closest friends, Steve and Victor, a gay couple--who are VERY style conscious-- said, "Why didn't we think of this before?" I love that they are close enough to believe they are my stylists. It just means that we're family, which is awesomely sweet.
My friend Tim, who I hung out with last night, said that I have to keep it this way from now on. It's just the way my hair should look. He also said that I don't look older, but more mature. Like I grew up. And that's exactly how I feel.
When Alanna and I saw each other tonight, we were talking about the lack of vanity thing and she laughed. She said that it probably made me a little more vain once I started getting the reactions I did. And she's right. But at least I did it for very altrustic reasons. I do love it, however. And when I did it, I looked in the mirror and didn't recognize myself.
Now I look in the mirror and I know that the person I see is the person I have been becoming over the past two years since starting this blog. SO while I've felt like I was coming back to myself, now I feel like I'm truly at home in who I am and the person looking at me in the mirror is that person who has been waiting to emerge.
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