Spoiler alert: it didn't. Not really, anyway.
At the end of June and smack dab in the middle of an emotional flashback, I discovered my kids had lice. We all opted to shave our heads instead of trying to kill and comb out nits and lice for weeks on end. It worked and saved us all a lot of scratching and frustration but it also meant that I was bald. In the middle of summer. Now, I've shaved parts of my head before, but never the whole thing and oh man, was that an adjustment whenever I looked in the mirror. I can honestly say I loved it, if for no other reason than because it made showering and getting ready so much less time consuming. And a big bonus: I was way less sweaty when a heat wave hit not too long after the Great Lice Discovery.
It wasn't just an adjustment in private, though. Going out felt so strange to me. I didn't feel any different, as anyone who knows me will know I keep my hair in a bun 99% of the time when it's long enough to be held there, so not having hair in my face wasn't strange. Even so, I felt exposed. So much so that I was wearing beanies in July, just so I didn't have my scalp on full display and exposed to the elements. I was so used to hiding behind my hair because even if I wore it up all the time, it still felt like armour to me. It was something I could hide behind, and I had been doing it for quite literally my entire life. Being without that was jarring, but it also forced me to look at my body differently, which in turn led to me thinking about my body differently.
I know a lot of people who have given birth might find my disdain and indifference to my body confusing because hey - I grew three whole entire people! While this is true, and miraculous, and I am so incredibly grateful that I was able to do that - because I know so many people that it didn't come quite so easily for - it didn't really change how I felt about my body at the core. Especially because, when I had my oldest, I was 18 and I heard endlessly that because of my age, I was sure to 'bounce right back' and drop the weight without a problem. This dialogue always bothered me and even though I never believed the people who told me that, because I knew my body and I knew that wasn't how it worked, the more I heard it, the more I hoped they were right. But, they weren't. My body changed and I had already hated it to being with, now it looked completely alien to me. It was really hard to deal with and I still struggle with it at time, despite how much I love everything my body has done for me.
I wish I could say shaving my head undid all my self esteem issues, but I unfortunately live in reality. I'm still incredibly insecure and fraught with self-esteem problems. It did change how I saw myself, though, and a lot of little adjustments in how I thought about and saw my body came from that. I don't quite love my body yet, but I definitely don't hate it anymore. To be honest. I haven't violently hated my body in years, it grew more into this distant indifference. My body was just the vessel that got me from place to place and that was that. I feel like that was a really important step that I haven't really heard anyone talk about before. It's always this narrative of turning around from hate to love, but that's a steep hill to climb and while I know I'm incredibly fortunate to have fewer hurdles than people who don't have the privilege of being born white and cis-gender, it's still a challenging journey none the less. I really feel that that in-between step of indifference made a significant impact on my way towards loving my body. I'm not there yet, but I'd go so far as to say I've moved from indifference to casual affection towards my body, and that's certainly a milestone worth celebrating.
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