All That Remains

A friend told me of his plan of getting bald. He encouraged me to join him in his endeavor. When I asked why he was doing it, he told me because he wanted to be bald during his internship. Well, that was the gist of it.

The guy had never been bald, which is a lie of course. We all come out of the womb with little or no hair, and even then when you were inside growing you were bound to start from being hairless. I had been bald once only since my childhood. Why I did it, I don't know really.

The one thing I remember from that experience is the reaction of my mother. From getting my haircut, I went straight home and do the things that I do, which is first and foremost, turning on the computer. I idly sat down and left my door ajar. When my mother passed by my bedroom door to get to hers, she noticed that my head had been shaved. That moment was priceless.

Not all good memories emerge from hairless heads. Well, not then. A day in the city that never sleeps and my sister and I decide to go out and have a haircut. My sister had her minds set on having a mohawk. On the other hand, I wanted to have hair that swept my face. It was on the verge of my FOB(fall out boy) days, and the hairstyle was popular then.

We went to a barbershop that was up in Queens, far away from where we lived, but my sister said this was where she usually has her hair cut(or just in the area, I'm not quite sure anymore), so we went. It was like a Chinatown in Queens, the stores were mostly labeled in Chinese, and so were the people. Maybe it was Chinatown Queens. The barbershop, not surprising, was employed with Chinese people. The woman who cut our hair was not really good at speaking English, or when she did speak it was with her very heavy Chinese accent.

The poor woman could not grasp my sister's directions clearly, and the work she did on my sister's hair was nothing close to a mohawk. If only she could press Undo like in photoshop. So with the unsatisfactory hair my sister had, she told the woman to just shave it all off. The Chinese woman was shocked because, well, she must have thought she did a pretty good job, might as well have given herself a pat on the back. My sister didn't mind, this was option #2.

When we got home, we were waiting for our dad to arrive. He always arrived near dinner time. Our dad was carrying a bunch of papers for I don't know what (je ne sais quoi). When he opened the door, he glanced at me then to my sister then threw the papers at my direction and, in a fit of rage, walked out the door. Well, that turned out nicely.

Years have passed and my hair had evolved into different hairstyles. This was, in turn, thanks to hair wax. I could mold my hair any way I would liked. And this continued on until earlier this morning, when I took up my friend's offer, months before he did the same.

Why I did it? No reason, nothing but to try it again. It seems that there must be some reason to cut hair, especially if you wanted it bald. This is popularized by mainstream TV shows that sometimes show when a character is going through something. Sometimes, it is true though, all the more for cancer patients. When it comes to the that, going bald is more like a symbolic gesture of control.

This is the process of how it went down.

Before, During, After (or near)

The one thing I was really looking forward to was my friends' reactions. When I told them of my plans the day prior(or at some point before that), they were really against the whole idea, saying that I wouldn't look good bald-headed. I agreed with them. I often classify my hair as an asset, like my glasses. When they saw me, they were shocked, but were retracting their statements, some preferred my old hair.

I kind of miss my hair already. And I keep telling myself, it'll grow back. And it will.

I just wish some of it grew on my face.

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What was done cannot be undone, but what once was can be rebuilt from the ashes.