Grief haircut

This afternoon, despite the cold winter weather, I went and got almost all my hair shaved off.

I’ve worn lots of different hairstyles in the past three decades, mostly short or medium-short. At any given moment, though, regardless of the hairstyle, when I feel intense pain — mostly pain from loss and/or grief — I have an almost irresistible impulse to shave my head. 

I have never actually had the courage to shave all my hair off completely but I have, very often, got it cut extremely short, almost down to the skin. 

For the past couple years, I’ve been wearing a short masculine haircut that I usually get trimmed every few weeks. I had been feeling like I was due for a haircut soon but the past couple days that feeling creeped back: running my hands through my hair, thick but no longer than a couple inches, feeling an unbearable weight, feeling that strong impulse to just get my clippers and shave it all off. 

It’s not fully shaved off now but it’s a very bare haircut with only a little bit of hair at the top of my head getting to about half an inch in length, the rest of it almost down to the skin, following the shape of my skull. 

Ah, the liberation! The liberation I felt as I saw the hair falling to the floor in the salon, the liberation I feel now, rubbing my head. 

It feels cleansing but also, in some way, it feels like the external, explicit, esthetic expression of my inner pain.