I have a cowlick...

….in a place that is pretty prominent; I’m shocked it has taken me this long to notice. And my hair is really dark; I can’t believe I have never known. But, then again, I’ve typically spent every morning my last 31 years brushing and blow-drying, straightening, or curling and certainly doing my damndest with colored shampoo, sunblock for the hair and 6-weekly-appointments to the hairdresser to maintain my perfect set of highlights. (“perfect” is the new term for “expensive as hell”, I might add)

So, after years of talking about it, a thwarted plan to “do it when I moved to Africa”, and an awe-inspiring moment of clarity at a Buddhist Retreat in Queensland 2 months ago, I finally took the plunge and did what very few white women in my culture seem to do : Shaved** my head!

**(In all fairness, I’ve been corrected by many that a Level 1 on the clippers is (which is what I did), in fact, not a ‘shave’. However, for me, I call it shaved. Level 0 or Level 1 – there was no hair.)

So, you might ask, as many before you have, “What in the hell were you thinking?” And the best answer that I can give looks something like this:

“It’s Just a Haircut”, I like to start with. (Mainly because it is the most relaxed summation of my actions from anyone to date. Thanks, EJH!)

But then I usually follow it with: Because I wanted to! I suddenly was really calm about the idea and in every way, it felt right. Just like my tattoo, I was just waiting for the right time to hit me. But, more than that, I wanted to know that I could. I wanted to know that I was more than a sum of my looks and that I was no longer a slave to dead cells on my head. To know that I had the balls to follow through with my plan and break the ridiculous mold that most white women I know adhere to. To know what it felt like and how it would look and to enjoy the redeeming liberation that men enjoy their entire lives! Because I ran out of excuses, while simultaneously realizing?/accepting? that all my excuses were entirely too vain for me to continue to live with, I did it. And, to face my fears – all of them. Because for a long time, I was scared …. Scared that I would feel utterly unattractive, or look like a lesbian, or regret it immediately, or not be cute for the wedding I had coming up or having to let everyone I know actually see me (vs. growing it out in some hidden corner of Africa!).. or…or…my list went on and on.

All to say, this was not a spontaneous decision and, like most things in my life, somehow I connected it to a larger lesson and derived some meaning that I was meant to gain: my own mini-lesson from the Universe. I’m pretty confident that no one else puts this much thought into it! However, this was a big personal moment for me and through it, I proved alot to myself.


Gone With My Head... from Stephanie Holcombe on Vimeo.

(If it is any wonder, take notice of all the hairstyles represented by the people who helped me get rid of mine!)

And, now, you might ask...How do I feel?

Amazing! Proud of myself! Wishing I did 10 years ago! Loving the haircut! It is wonderfully easy and I love that. And, weekly I receive some form of acknowledgement from strangers all over the world. (Most recently being from a drunk patient last night who suddenly in the middle of his drunken state, out of the blue, looked at me and said: “Hey. Nice haircut!” It was very funny. And from a group of kids today asking me if I was a boy or a girl. "But then we saw your milk", they said. i.e. my breasts)

I secretly love that I am often told how beautiful my head is (what?) and that I have a horrible cowlick in the dead center in the front that I must learn to love and that somehow I resemble my father’s childhood pictures now (they did always want a boy first….). And in my own way, I feel like it is quite beautiful, sexy, suave and sheik. Or at least I’d like to think so.

So, despite some of the emphatic responses I’ve gotten (i.e. my Mother literally squealing “What HAVE you done?!” when picking me up at the airport, to my father’s business partner’s incorrect summation that I would now “have a real problem with my love life”, to the innocent lady in the mall who stopped me to ask if I was sick – Yes, I’ve gotten them all. ), I still love it and hope that secretly I’m inspiring all of the many, many women who stop me to share how “they’ve also always wanted to do it”, that they easily can, too.

My very first picture taken with my roommate, Sammy: The Nun who did her best to talk me out of it!