No Hair, Don't Care.
August 9, 2024, was a rare Saturday when I didn’t have anything to do or any place to be. You see 2024 has been 2024-ing without a break. Between adjusting to self-employment, blending households with my boyfriend, navigating the aftershock of my mother’s death a short three weeks after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, and traveling from Massachusetts to NYC two days a week every week since April, I honestly didn’t know what rest was. I remember laying in bed thinking about how I needed to deal with my personal grooming situation and being exhausted at the prospect.
I had been the self-proclaimed Wig and Weave Queen of America for decades. It was fun being my own, personal, life-sized, chocolate doll (I have a friend of many years whose nickname for me is “Chocolate Doll” – get into it!). My wigs are accessories much in the way jewelry, shoes, and handbags are for other folks. Long, short, straight, curly, black, brown, blonde highlights – you name it, I tried it. There were times I went to work one day with long, curly, Donna Summer-esque curls only to show up the next day with a chin-length, straight bob in a different color. I remember purchasing a super-cute, long, straight wig and being told that I couldn’t have short hair one day and then show up the next day with hair down to my butt. My response was “hold my flat iron!”.
But on this Saturday morning, I thought of what it would take to be responsible about my personal grooming and to go out in public looking like someone who loves herself and cares about her appearance. I’d have to shampoo and condition the wig (aka hair hat), unbraid my natural hair, shampoo and condition it, re-braid it, then style the wig. I just didn’t have it in me. I said to myself, “Self, just cut your hair off. It’s one less step and you’ll have the wig on anyway”. Without another thought, I went into the bathroom and cut all my hair off. About an hour later, I took out my boyfriend’s clippers and shaved the rest off. I then got back into bed and relaxed my mind and body for the rest of the weekend. When Monday morning came, I hadn’t addressed the hair hat. It looked like a bird’s nest and there was no way I could go out in it. I said “eff it!” and decided to rock out with my bald head since that was preferable to going out in the wig that looked like “When Animals Attack” (shout out to my friend Bryan who used that analogy many years ago and it cracks me up to this day)>
It’s the busy season in my industry, so I’ve been in these streets representing insurance magic at conferences and I-Days across the country. Response to my bald head has been overwhelmingly positive – at least the responses I’ve heard. One exception was a colleague who asked whether it was a style choice, but apparently didn’t accept my affirmative response, and followed that question immediately by asking whether or not I had cancer. Rather than being offended, I chose to be thankful that he cared enough about me to be concerned about my health (and in case you were wondering, I am in excellent health). My boyfriend told me that I am “the right kind of pretty” to rock a bald head. Many women in my circle have lauded my “bold choice” and I’ve gotten many “I love it” and “you look great” responses. Even strangers love it. I was in Century 21 in NYC a few weeks ago and two older women entering as I exited smiled and nodded vigorously as we passed. I was in Walgreen’s last week and a woman I didn’t know said “I keep staring at you. Your face is beautiful!”
I’m human and am honest enough to say that as self-actualized as I am, I enjoy compliments and positive feedback. However, I’ve been sitting with the idea of the importance we place on validation of our appearance by others, and particularly as a Black woman, the relationship we have with our hair. I remember how proud I was of my good friend Precious Norman Walton CPCU, SHRM-CP, TRIP, AIC, AINS, AIS, ACS when she chopped off her curls and embraced her beautiful gray. I love looking at all the beautiful Black women who have gone natural. At the same time, I love my ladies who have a whole vibe when they accessorize as they wish, using extensions and wigs to play with color, texture, and volume. What I love about all of that is the agency we claim over how we show up – the unapologetic way in which we adorn ourselves as we wish while supporting other women doing the same – even if their style is significantly different from ours. There is no one way to be a woman and it is important to recognize that we don’t get to decide how other people should appear in the world.
We can have a whole conversation about how women (especially Black women) choose to style their hair (or not) in professional settings. It would go hand-in-hand with the policing of our bodies and even get into how and why we judge each other based on appearance. But that’s a conversation for a different day.
So far, this journey has made me recognize that for years, I’d been hiding behind the hair. I am amazed by how comfortable in my skin I feel with my bald head. I don’t need hair to be beautiful. I don’t need hair to feel polished and “put together”. I don’t need hair to be feminine (and apparently, I don’t need hair to activate the launch sequence for the man in my life!). I realize that in some ways, the hair was a distraction from being truly seen. I attended a conference recently, and a few people I’d met several times before greeted me as if it was our first time meeting. In some ways, maybe it was. This Traci is freer and more confident. And all it took was a little bit of laziness – lol. I may still rock a hair hat every now and then (I almost pulled one off the shelf a week or two ago when I stepped outside into a particularly crisp and cool New England morning), but for now, I am enjoying being bald!
