
I have had this in the house for over a year, using it for regular shaving, which surprisingly, I have to do (neck and cheeks).
The other day, I don’t know what got into me, I took my shaving razor to my head. I have been shaving my head quite close for months, I have just not used anything but my Wahl, ‘Peanut’ hair trimmer to do so. I have avoided using anything with a blade since my skin loves to be nicked, and does so easily and frequently when I pass a razor over my skin. Even when I don’t actually nick it, it can open and bleed. Therefore, I have resorted to an electric shave.
Shaving my head has been one of the best things I have done, as I have mentioned before, perhaps one of the most liberating things I have ever chosen. I had feared, as most men do and yet don’t care to admit, hair loss. I had figured out when studying genetics in high school, that I was most probably safe. As it turned out, theories in the late sixties were off, well demonstrated on my pate.
I located a photo album for a friend the other day, to show her and her son photos of his possible exchange location in France that I have helped arrange. In it I saw myself at the age of forty-eight. I still had plenty of hair on the top, clearly losing it (in more than one way!), but still there.
At one point in this balding process, and being a long time hater of comb overs, I started cutting my hair really short, a style I wore for a long time, liberating me from the barber shop. As time went on it got shorter and shorter. Early last summer, I tried to shave it off with my electric trimmer and liked it.
As vain as we are, instead of being more self-conscious, I felt even less so, a serious surprise for me. I am thankful to all of the men who have preceded me by being courageous enough to let go of their follicular plumage and making being bald a possibility.
My biggest adjustment has been to the air. I cannot tell you how different it feels to have the air movement and feel the cool air on my head. At the beginning of the winter, I actually wondered if I would ever be able to go outside without a hat. As it happens, it was a slow adjustment, and I can actually do that.
Now that I have taken an actual razor to my head, thanks to a thirty-something student at Oakton I met while playing Santa, Joshua Rodriguez, I have the tools I need to actually shave my head with a razor (which is way faster and feels even better), without blood loss.
More to come…