All my life, I'd wanted to do something crazy. I had always been a well-behaved girl in a well-behaved family with well-behaved sisters. At times, it seemed bland to be good. I longed for something thrilling, exciting and rebellious. When I got to college, I thought I'd be able to fulfill that desire somehow with the new found freedoms that came with moving away from home. In typical, good-girl fashion, the rebellion was in the form of St. Baldrick's, a foundation that raises money to fund awareness and cure research for childhood cancers. The money is raised over the course of a few months and then on the day all the donations are counted, participants shave their heads and donate their hair to patients.
Yep. I shaved my head. On a cold, April day. In the middle of the quad.
Bald.
And though my shaved-head endeavor was less of a Britney and more for charity, it taught me so many things I couldn't have known otherwise -aside from the simple things I didn't realize (i.e. how cold it is without hair, and how the shape of your head is something you don't pay attention to until there's nothing covering it).
Bravery with individuality.
I was going to start this category off with simply bravery, but really, I have done nothing compared to a child's fight against cancer. When people would say, "Wow, you're so brave," I never really felt that brave. Having my bald head felt more like a badge of honor than it did a badge of bravery. I'd really done nothing to require bravery. But now, I feel brave. I feel brave enough to do whatever I want with my hair. I can cut it short, keep it long, wear it up, wear it down, color it wild colors, dye it blonde, dye it black. Anything I do to it will never compare to being bald. And even if something were to go wrong with a haircut, I could shave it off again no problem. I feel a freedom I hadn't known before participating.
Attractiveness.
Just two years after I shaved my head, there was a pixie cut phenomena that had ladies all over the world taking the shears to their hair. I read article after article about the outrage some men felt about how these short hairstyles "made women less attractive and more masculine looking."
To be honest, before I shaved my head, I didn't think I would ever be considered attractive with a buzzcut. And, as shallow as it is, it was one of the things that worried me the most prior to the chop. What if men didn't find me appealing because all of my hair was gone? These men are saying women aren't attractive even if they're petite. I most certainly was not petite after my freshman-15 gain. No one would find me attractive if I was bald.
After the event, I not only was able to become more in touch with myself, but I became a more confident person all around. The summer following my donation, I met a guy who loved me for my personality more than he did for my looks. To this day, it remains one of the most honest and fun relationships I've had, because, from the beginning, he got to see past my physical appearance.
Identity.
Not many people think about their hair as a part of their identity unless it is a staple trait. For me, my hair was pretty average. It was an average length, with average texture and average color. There really was nothing special about my hair that identified me specifically from anyone else. What I didn't realize until I made the decision to shave it was really how much it meant to me as a person.
My hair made me feel complete. It was long enough to cover my face when I blushed. It was a shield. It made me feel feminine and pretty. I could do it up or let it fall around my face. With all of that gone, I was forced to identify myself in different ways. I found I grew more fully in personality, faith and relationships. My identity switched focus from myself to others. As opposed to what I worried about weeks before the event, I discovered that I worried less about what people were thinking of me physically and more of what people thought of me as a whole.
Finally, selflessness.
Shaving my head came with a lot of worries. They all peaked the moment that razor ran through my hair the first time. But nothing taught me to give all I had like being able to give kids a second chance and confidence with a wig made of my own hair. It's hard to feel what true selflessness feels like until you've given a shirt off your back, or the hair off your head.
I would shave my head over and over and over again. For any and all of these reasons, I think every young woman should try it once. It is an experience that will teach you so much about life, about love, about giving and about yourself.
http://www.stbaldricks.org/get-involved?gclid=CL6l...
