My Trip to Buzzville - A Message to My People

Last weekend I buzzed off all of my hair.  In a matter of minutes I went from 12" locks to 1/4" buzz.  Why?  Because I wanted to.  But the trip to buzzville took me through some very dark corners of my mind.  Some super deeply rooted beliefs were visited repeatedly.  There were detours and roundabouts and u-turns.  But I got here.  This post is a sort of road map of the route I took.  Just in case you're lost on the same journey.

I had a friend a while back who buzzed her hair.  She was thin, with big eyes and good bone structure, and a zero fucks given attitude.  And I remember being jealous of her nerve, and the fact that she could "pull off" the look.  The idea of not having to wash, condition, leave-in condition, dry and flat iron my hair to look presentable was so appealing.  But that kind of convenience seemed about as attainable to me as the ability to fly.  Because I'm not thin, or young.  I don't have great bone structure, and I tend to give way too many fucks about what people think of me.  So I gave it very little thought beyond "I wish I could do that".

Then came COVID-19, insidious fucker that it is  And, like many companies, mine sent us home to work.  One of my coworkers, a single mom on lockdown with a toddler, working full time and pursuing her degree, buzzed her hair.  And the craziest thing happened as she debuted her new 'do on our weekly Zoom meeting.  My boss' head did not explode!  Nor did his boss' head!  And right about then my thoughts very slowly started to turn from "I wish I could" to "What if I did?"

And when I say slowly, I mean really, REALLY slowly.  Because what right did I have to do that? (Seriously, brain, WTF?).  Sure, my coworker could do it because she's young, so on her it's "edgy".  Plus she has the kid and the school work and if anyone deserves simplicity in her life, it's her.  I'm 54.  I can't be edgy.  I live alone.  I have no excuse.

But....what if I did?

I could blame it on the lockdown!  Yeah, that's the ticket!!  I could say I went Corona Crazy.  I could do something I had always wanted to do, and blame it on the Rona!!!  What an opportunity!!

Ahh...who am I kidding?  I could never pull it off.

But the weeks went by.  And while I don't believe the lockdown clouded my judgement in any way, I do think it gave me a lot more time to think about it.  And think about it.  And think about it.

And the weeks went by.

Bruiser needed a haircut.  Bad.  And the groomers were all shut down.  So I borrowed a set of clippers from a friend.  And they sat there, on the kitchen counter, taunting me.  Whispering "What if you did?"

Ok maybe the lockdown got to me a little bit.

I started talking to friends about it, trying to get honest opinions.  And, almost unanimously, the opinion was one version or another of "Don't do it".  It was stated in well-meaning ways ranging from "You're crazy" to "Girl, leave your hair alone" to "You'll look like a cancer patient or an inmate".  And for a while I convinced myself that if that many people, people who I care about and whose opinions I generally value, think I shouldn't do it, maybe I shouldn't do it.

But, dammit, I really wanted to.

You know how you can be in the grocery store and there's music playing but you don't really hear it until a song you actually like comes on?  That's how that thought slowly wormed its way into my consciousness.  It was there in the background and then suddenly I was tapping my foot and humming along.  I really wanted to.

But still....should I?

I Googled "Women's buzzed haircut", looking for validation that I might actually NOT end up looking like Uncle Fester.  And I don't mean 90's Christopher Lloyd Uncle Fester.  I mean fat, hollow-eyed, 1960's Jackie Coogan uncle fester.  But what I found were images of beautiful women, not a one of them over 25.  Not a saggy jowl or crooked jawline or wrinkle or double chin in the bunch.  My people were nowhere to be found.  And I wondered why.  Do my people not buzz their hair?  Do they not post pictures of it?  Or are we just not pretty enough to show up in the Google searches?

And I thought, "What if I was my people, for my people?"  Maybe, if I actually had the balls to do this, someday a 50-something woman would be trying to screw up the courage to do what she really wanted to do to her own damn head, and she'd see my picture.  Maybe just the right search string or hashtag would bring her to Blog Over Lunch and here I would be, saying "Here I am, Sister.  I did it, and the world didn't end.  So if you want to, go for it!  Because I'm here for you.  Just do me a favor and drop a pic in the comments."

So here we are.  I'm six days in to having buzzed hair.  I've learned a few things along the way, but that's for another post.  For now I'm just here to say it's your hair and it's your head and you deserve as much or as little simplicity as you want.  If you want to spend an hour a day perfecting your tresses, girl, go for it.  But if you want to take it all off, please don't let anyone talk you out of it.  I can almost guarantee you won't regret it.  And if you do, it'll grow back.  Feel free to blame me.  Either way, the world keeps spinning and the people who love you will still love you and the ones who don't, well they'll find some reason to talk shit about you anyway, so you just be you.

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