I'm shaving my head to raise money for childhood cancer research! This past summer I experienced first hand the turmoil that a cancer diagnosis wreaks on a family when my dad was diagnosed. I'm incredibly thankful that God guided his doctors to an early diagnosis and effective treatment. Right around Thanksgiving they confirmed no traces were left! I've also felt helpless when dear friends have had their loved ones forced into waging war against this vicious disease. This is a small way for me to help another family avoid that pain. I hope you'll help me.

I’m also doing this for another reason that I don’t talk about very often. Now I’m just going to warn you that this is about to get long and also probably weirdly personal, so no worries if you want to abandon ship now, haha. I see having my head shaved as a freeing next step in the journey I've been tackling over the past several years to erase the societal lies I've so long allowed myself to believe and instead fiercely love myself exactly as I am. People often compliment me on how confident or even fearless I seem; how my positivity radiates through a room. What they don't know is the hard work it took and is still taking to get to that place. 

I can tell you the exact spot I was in nearly five years ago when I suddenly realized I had a major self-esteem problem and that it was keeping me from doing a lot of things I loved. I was out dancing with friends and a guy across the room kept staring at me. It really bothered me and the only reason I could come up with wasn’t that my smooth dance moves must have caught his eye or he thought I was looking good. The thought that popped into my head was that he couldn’t get over how ugly I was. I felt a sudden compulsion to put a bag over my head and flee the dance floor to save him from having to stare at my hideousness. Luckily, immediately afterwards the rational side of my brain kicked in and I realized I had some serious work to do to eliminate such idiotic negativity.

Thus began the slow, messy process of digging down to the root of these lies so I could pull them out permanently. An asymmetrical ptosis I've had since birth combined with the onset of severe cystic acne in my early twenties had left me uncertain of my own worth as a human being. I’ve thankfully always been blessed to have an incredible support network of family and friends around me, but even they couldn’t protect me from society’s backwards ways. Even though as an adult strangers no longer flat out asked me what was wrong with my face the first time they met me, I was frequently reminded that many people didn't see me as normal. Photographers at events yelling at me to keep my eyes open so I'd stop ruining their photos, people checking my ID laughing and asking if I was drunk when my DL photo was taken, doctors telling me they couldn’t understand how I was okay living life looking the way that I do. It was unpredictable but constant and somewhere along the way I stopped questioning these outsiders’ view of me; I wrapped myself up in it and absorbed it until I could no longer see any worth in myself either.

Prior to realizing I had a problem, I’d occasionally feign a migraine on particularly bad days so I’d spare my friends from having to look at my face. I stopped volunteering as a tutor for kids because of the derision in their parents’ eyes when their kids asked me honest questions about my looks. I stayed in a toxic relationship for years because I was desperate for validation. I actively avoided having my picture taken. I’m not proud of any of that, but in hindsight I can see that these experiences have given me value and understanding that I wouldn’t have without them.

Re-building one’s self-worth is often tedious, sometimes torturous, and more often than not a straight up-hill battle; but it’s worth it! Squashing negative thoughts before they fully blossomed into my self-conscious became a game of whack-a-mole. I forced myself into situations that scared me and made me uncomfortable. I refused to have days where feeling ugly or awkward dictated my behavior. I ran a marathon – hands down the most empowering thing I have ever done. I still feel its impact years later! I embraced my “unnatural” strength. I made space in my life for creative freedom. I spent a year writing down at least one thing to be grateful for each day – this sounds hokey but it dramatically re-aligned my outlook on life. I began wearing things that grabbed people’s attention and forced them to look at me instead of doing everything in my power to fade into the background. Most importantly, I reminded myself as many times as necessary that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. It all paid off as I can honestly say that I am currently the happiest I’ve ever been!

Ironically, I’ve never told anyone that my penchant for statement jewelry originated as a concerted effort to distract people from looking at my face. I figured if I had something beautiful around my face, maybe no one would actually look at it. I’m happy to say that is no longer the case, I’ve just developed a crazy passion for it now, haha, along with loud prints. Wearing things that draw attention to me reminds me that I have nothing to hide from the world.

This has gotten ridiculously long but the fact of the matter is, I’m going to rock my gorgeous shaved head in a few weeks and unearth and eradicate any last remaining insecurities I discover along the way. I encourage you to do the same! I know it’s going to sound cheesy, but now more than ever I feel that we need to remember that differences are what make us human. Imperfections make us beautiful.