I have always wanted to shave my head and after seeing my cousin, Taylor, shave hers when I was pretty young, I told myself that I wanted to do the same.
Besides having an inkling for wanting to shave my head, I also did it for another reason.
I originally grew up in Garden Grove/Los Alamitos area and then we moved to my current location when I was around 4 years old. I grew up from start to finish with one family in particular, The Escovedos. They are in the majority of all our family movies. Me and Casey were best friends with our dee dees and blankies. And, in all sincerity they have made me be the person I am today.
Even though we saw them less when we moved away, we still saw them a lot. They were like my "step" family. I remember so many things from the moments I have spent with them... Paul McCartney concert, shaver lake, Cam's graduation, Password Champs, The bat on the boat, Bass Lake, BILL, yoshi, too much wine, The Beatles, These cards are marked de a mess!!!, giving casey spy kits for any holiday, fio ritos, crystal cove, watching VHS tapes in the car on our way to Bass, Cameron pretending to be a shark and grabbing my leg in the lake, Petunia and Vernon, FORKS, Steve losing his glasses, My dad catching over 50 fish in one week AND a whole lot of other moments...unfortunately it is boring for anyone who wasn't there to experience these tid bits of my memories.
I shaved my head because of Shawna. Shawna has now been free from her GBM for 5 years and is now undergoing treatment for a completely new and different cancer. Myeloma, to be exact. She shaved her head because she is going to lose her hair anyways. I thought that in honor of her I should shave mine too. For fuck sake this woman has raised two amazing boys, has battled one of the most vicious brain cancers, has broken her hip (well, a tumor broke it), and now has to deal with a whole other cancer. And if you saw Shawna from a distance you would never know any of this because she walks around with a smile on her face and laughter in her heart. She has beaten the odds. She amazes me.
I know shaving my head won't make her better or cure cancer, but it shows that I love her and that she is not fighting this battle alone. I mean besides going through her treatments she is/would have lost all her hair again. Do you know what it is like for a woman to lose her hair? I know that when I had cut my hair off for locks of love(12 inches off) that I felt ugly and naked. Long hair or medium length or whatever length is considered beautiful. Short hair gets you labels like DYKE and BUTCH. Most guys aren't looking for a hot girl with short hair because I think a lot of the world doesn't associate short hair with beauty. Look at all the Disney Princesses. And, yes, it is more trendy now, but when a girl cuts her hair it initially feels like you have lost your security blanket. And maybe she felt that way the first time she lost her hair or maybe she didn't, but I wanted to basically make the statement that, "we don't all decide to "lose" our hair". What I mean is that there are people like Shawna with no choice in the matter. But here I am with a choice and I decided to "lose" it anyways.
Cancer is everyone's battle to fight.
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