The Shave

Let me lead with, I hate winter.  I hate it.  I miss the sun, the warm days, the being outside, the porch the ease of moving about your day without defrosting and bundling- and every year, by February, I'm ready to rip my own face off.  This February was a special one - we hadn't seen the sun in a loooong time, I was stuck inside with two bored and insane toddlers and my brain crack, Facebook, had turned into a playground of political fury.  Everyone seemed angry or scared.  Everyone was indignant.  Strangers on viral videos fighting in coffee shops and click bait headlines everywhere - everyone online seemed to take a corner and whether it was what was outwardly posted or quietly shared or buried deep in the comments, or at a rally or the unfriending of someone because of politics - I saw a hot bed of furious emotion.  And I was right there in the thick of it. 

I couldn't take it anymore.  It began as a quiet joke to myself "I'm so over this shit I'm going to shave my fucking head!" And I would laugh at myself and move past whatever Facebook comment set my pants on fire. This happened so often though that the thought began to stick. Huh.. what if? What would it be like to shave my head? And not because I was going crazy, but because I needed to shake the dust off my world, change it up.  What if? Would it turn out to be a good idea or at best a neutral idea, or - you know, would I end up bald and hiding under hats and saving for extensions while everyone laughed "what did you think was going to happen? You shaved your damn head!"  I really saw it as a toss up.  I couldn't just shave my head.  That's insane!

My girlfriend shaved her head last summer for St. Baldricks.  I remember thinking she was such a bad ass! Great cause - bold move - bad ass!! She's a good person.  I want to be a good person.  I want to do good and meaningful things.   I want to know what it's like to shave my head.  I need to do this.  So there I was, already chewing on this notion and here is this amazing nonprofit that shaves heads.  Let's do this.  So without much more thought than that, I signed up, announced it on Facebook hoping to raise $1,000 and told you all the truth - I wanted to be uplifted.  I wanted to change my newsfeed.  I wanted to give the right fuck, for the right reason, at the right time and this felt like that chance.  So I took it. 

If you've spent any time with me in real life, or suffered through my posts (thank you) you probably know a few things: I'm horrible at punctuation. Annoying, I know. I hate math and I'm an all-or-nothing kind of girl. 100% all in or 100% all out.  It's not usually my favorite attribute about myself but it's rooted pretty deep so I work with it. But knowing this about myself when I signed up to fundraise, well then balls-to-the-wall fundraising I was going to do.  I was going to own fundraising. I was going to stay-at-home-mom the fuck out of fundraising!!!  I had the time, the passion, the emotional connection and it didn't hurt that my background is in marketing and sales, with an emphasis on running my mouth on social media, so I did me.  I ran my mouth on social media. And the sales rep in me needed to know it all, everything.  So, I read.  I read the St. Baldricks blogs, I read the beautiful words a mom wrote about her 4 year olds last day.  I read the stories I usually flip past.  I was the messages that were sent to me.  I read them and I felt them all.  Each one.  And with each new story, each child, each family and blog post this silly little idea of mine grew into something so amazing but also heavy.  It weighted on me and I felt your pain.  

I don't have a very good wall for external stimuli.  I tend to take it all in and I'm learning how to create more distance.  It's been an incredible gift at times and other times it feels like a curse.  I have had three panic attacks in my life.  One while going through my divorce (obvious panic attack conditions)  and two while fundraising for St. Baldricks.  (Not so obvious panic attack conditions.)  I just felt all the feels, all at once and the added awesomeness of being a mom - well I short circuited.  My hubby had to take the day off work. I couldn't adult.  I couldn't function. My brain was in sheer panic mode.  I went down a rabbit hole and I couldn't get out.  It took a strong Xanax, a good unloading of all the words, and tears, a hot bath, a prayer to the essential oil gods and a sound night of sleep before I began to calm down.  A little.  I remember laying in bed trying to get off the ferris wheel of terror my brain was on and all of a sudden I heard: "God gives to us and God takes away, and God does it all again."  "God giveth and God taketh away."  I don't typically have what I would define as spiritual moments.  In fact I can't really recall ever having had one, but there it was. This calm voice and it wasn't my own. I feel asleep that night meditating on that.  The beautiful simplicity in those words.  It wasn't mine to stress and worry about, none of it.  Not my future or my children's future, it was in Gods hands and I just had to trust that.  He gives and he takes so when you're up, show gratitude and when you're down, be faithful.  The tides will turn.  They always do.  This calmness is not so easy to practice in real life, but  I'm working on it.  My natural go to is to puppet master life - I was a good sales rep, this worked out well for me.  But you can't function like this, it's absurd. We aren't really in control - it's all an illusion and to try is just wasted energy. My anxiety gets the better of me when I'm desperately trying to control it all.  To predict and plan for it all.  I know this and yet somehow I never recognize that I'm coming up upon a moment of crazy until after I lose my shit and have to come walking back into the house and go "yeah babe, sorry.  Thanks for day off and carting me around town for meds and therapy. Wanna grab a drink and watch me cry?" Adult goal: head off my crazy before it erupts. Accomplish goal by: dying breath or sooner.

While all of this was happening though, a beautiful snowball was starting on my Facebook account.  What started off as a $1,000 goal was now a $5,000 goal.  I was receiving such generous support and my newsfeed really was changing.  My favorite local business owners jumped on board.  My favorite South Carolina business owner jumped on board.  My friends, my family, friends of friends, old bosses...it just kept growing and by May 21st I walked into that bar well over my final goal of $8,000!  

A month into fundraising I was launched from "uplifted" right into a new ballpark.  When I say I was humbled, just leveled by the amount of support and backing of this - the word "humbled" doesn't even do it justice.  I was so truly honored to be able to remember your loved ones in this way - your person - your child.  One of my most generous donors lost her person.  The one you go to, about it all - the one who sees you and still adores you.  To know this about you - to be able to feel this when I think about my person, and to know that you wanted to do this to honor her - Oh, Lord.  I felt that, and I wanted to do everything I could to respect and honor that, and to send love out in her name. In all their names. 

The extreme emotions of this adventure I didn't expect. You can't really, not until you're in it but I was most surprised by that - that wide rang of emotional ups and downs. 

The night before the shave I sat with my husband just marveling at what had occurred, and I asked him the one question I didn't want to get caught asking out loud, "do you think this will look cute? Or do you think I'll spend the next 7 months going, "ehh, shit. Know what I learned babe? I learned I miss my hair. Hat please."  I think I was equally as ridiculous just before our son was born and I asked (probably baby hormonal and crying) "what if when the baby arrives I forget it somewhere and I can't find it?" Do you know who you can't lose? My kids!  When you go all in on something that you can't take back, like say a baby or a tattoo on your face or shaving your head in a bar, at some point, I think you take a leap of faith knowing you'll know what you know when you get there. Where ever there is.  

The first big thing I felt after was freedom.  A crazy sense of freedom.  More than freedom, liberation. It was insane! No washing my hair, drying my hair, styling my hair, getting annoyed with my hair - feeling defined by my hair.  I didn't even focus that much on hair and there it was, all the wasted energy being poured into it.  That was energy I could relocate elsewhere.  And I did.  That feeling of freedom in turn made me feel so comfortable and light and calm within my own skin.  I've seriously never given less fucks and I didn't have a large pile of fucks-to-give to begin with.  I feel so proud of this bald head and I smile every time I see it.  I think of you all and how amazing you were and I think about how really one act, like shaving my head, could have had such a ripple effect. And every time I rub it (which yes, I do non stop) I can't believe in the end over $11,000 was raised for childhood cancer. And the wigs - wow. 

So I'm a month out.  It took me some time to digest it, to process the emotions as well as my own parenting anxiety and "what if's" that jumped aboard.  Have you even been so grateful and felt so fortunate in the cards you'd been dealt that it scares you to the core? You're sitting there and life is shining a big old ray of sunshine on you and you're too busy looking for the rain clouds to bask in it. Foolish huh? I think that's what happened to me in April and it took me until now to be able to articulate it,  which is usually how I can then, box it back up and put it back on the shelf. 

So, in May, I proudly shaved my head for St. Baldricks.  Because I wanted to spread some love and do something that felt meaningful.  

Today, I shaved my head again and dyed it pink, for me.  I want to enjoy it a little longer.  I wanted to celebrate my blessings and somehow show gratitude in the choice I had. I wanted to remind myself not to take it all so seriously, to relax, to enjoy the now and the fortunate hand that was dealt to me and mine. I know life will level me at some point, it's a guarantee - but, I'm not going to ruin my blessed days wondering what will be and when. 

Sometimes it's best to just lean into it, to smile and have some fun. To let go. 

As it turns out, it's pretty good for the soul.