My vulnerable baldness

I’m bald.

So what, right? Lots of men are bald. And some women. I like a lot of things about my body — lots of things — but I’ve always had this strange discomfort about being bald.

When I could barely breathe and I was headed into unconsciousness just before getting a double-lung transplant, between breaths I made the joke with the doctor, “I’ll wake up with a full head of hair, right?” That’s how much my baldness has been on my mind in my adult life.

I’m writing about this because it doesn’t serve me to try to cover it up, wear a hat, or just feel bad about it. It’s what it is.

I like to be really honest with you and show that I have clutter too. Not necessarily a lot of things, but I have ways of behaving that don’t serve me. And this is one of them.

This came to light the other week when I was doing an online clutter busting session with a client and I noticed I was positioning the webcam so they couldn’t see the bald part of my head. It was an unconscious move, but it became conscious. When it came to consciousness, I was embarrassed by my own embarrassment. I realized I didn’t want to be vulnerable in that moment.

My client was being vulnerable — they were sharing how they were stuck and I had no judgments about that. I didn’t need them to be other than they were. But perhaps I didn’t think that they could do the same for me, and that’s clutter.

I guess that’s how it is — you open up the closet to look for something to wear, and you notice that a shirt you normally wear no longer feels right any more. That’s how I felt when I became aware of this behavior. My bald, shiny head was illuminated!

Since then, I’ve been not wearing a hat when I go out, and it feels like an acceptance kicked in. This is how it is — I’m bald. With that comes a feeling of freedom. I don’t have to hide any more.