Going bald for a cause

By Jessica Coleman

Staff Writer 

 Most of the time, if I am out and about in town, my hair is piled into a ball on top of my head. I spend my hard-earned money to pay for these great bangs and then I pin them back and stuff them into the messy bun the rest of my hair occupies. I wanted it long and for some reason it just drives me crazy when it is long. It’s in the way. It’s everywhere. There is just so much of it. 

   In a few days, on March 6, that changes. My hair is pretty long – shoulder blade-length or so, so I’ve decided that it has to come off – all of it. No, I am not getting a cute little pixie cut or a 1920s starlet bob  á la Louise Brooks. I’m shaving it. Off. All of it.

   This is no existential crisis involving an exploration and defiance of my own vanity. This is not a feminist rebellion to fight the patriarchy or any other political or moral statement. It’s actually for a pretty good cause. 

   On March 6, with a bunch of other people including several women from Jackson County, I will “brave the shave” at the     second annual St. Baldrick’s Foundation shave event at Schroeder Hall. 

   My hair is pretty long, and it has never been dyed, so I am donating it to an organization called Children With Hair Loss (although they do accept chemically treated hair, for clarity), who provide real hair wigs to children who have lost their hair to a number of different ailments, including but not limited to cancer. 

   I’m a lot more excited about it than I thought I would be. Everyone who knows me knows I love a good cause, and raising money for pediatric cancer, while also showing solidarity to kids who didn’t have a choice in losing their hair, is right up my alley. I can’t wait. 

   Kelsey Strauss, who has been in charge of my head for some time now, will do the honors, and my friend and coworker Millie Diaz will be there snapping photos. My friend Helen Balderas is shaving her head, too, so  I’ll have some moral support in case I have an emotional meltdown over it. Although I don’t think I will. I am really excited about being bald. I might even make peace with my uneven ears (Ok, I actually will probably never make peace with my uneven ears. I have to bend my glasses so they sit straight on my face and it is a chore). 

   If you’re not doing anything on March 6, come out to Schroeder Hall and see some tears and some falling hair and some togetherness. See some kids with cancer feel like they have real allies, and see a grown woman with uneven ears go bald. I hope you can make it. 

   If you’d like to donate to my St. Baldrick’s Foundation campaign, I would just be tickled to death (just go to https://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/mypage/814653/2016 or find me in person), but don’t donate to me. Don't’ donate for me. Don’t even donate because you like me or think I will look cool bald, or because you don’t like me and think I will look stupid bald. 

   Donate because kids with cancer need you to. Donate so more kids with cancer can grow up to be adults without cancer.