How P!nk Helped Normalize My Baldness

I got a pixie haircut the week before my second chemo. I always wanted one, and my doctor said “you are not going to NOT lose your hair,” which is a weird prevarication, but whatever. Some people hang on to their hair as long as they can. They pretend their hair isn’t thinning, that they aren’t losing clumps. I hadn’t even started losing it yet really, but my scalp was tender. It’s going to happen. It usually starts after the second chemo. The biggest deciding factor for me was my mom. She went through chemo, and she held on to her hair. Then one day at dinner she BROKE DOWN in tears and said “I am TIRED of EATING MY HAIR!” So we went in the downstairs bathroom, and Les shaved mom’s head while she cried.

I don’t want to do that. I don’t want my experience to be like mom’s. Most things, she showed me how to handle, but this…. this, I did the opposite. So I got a pixie haircut for a week, then I shaved my head. Well, Kent shaved my head while playing the Game of Thrones Shame app (shame! Shame! SHAME!). I did rock a mohawk in the interrim so I could look like P!nk.

I’ve always fucking loved P!nk. She was my first and best “angry girl music.” I was a junior in high school and I loved her hair and her style and her voice and her strength. She has always been my power music. “Can’t Take Me Home” was the first album I ever bought. She is beautiful and amazing and CUT. I am seriously in love with P!nk and her music has been a part of my life and getting me through hard times. I’m usually not a music person, like I don’t need it or listen to it every day or anything… but P!nk is my exception. I like other music and musicians in a vague way, but I fucking love P!nk. She speaks to my soul. My soul is surprisingly poppy!

So when I had to cut my hair, who did I use as an example? I gave the hair dresser a picture of one of P!nk’s pixie cuts. Life cannot be bad if I look like P!nk. I should have also dyed it, but that sounded like too much work, and P!nk herself says that pinkness is a state of mind rather than a color.

That’s the best part of celebrity culture. P!nk is someone I can point to and channel and say “P!nk would do this” or “P!nk wouldn’t do this.” And I can tell you right now that P!nk wouldn’t give a fuck if she had a shaved head. Plus, got to look like a girl you wouldn’t wanna mess with, heavy makeup and everything. 

This is just a way for to reconceptualize my current life, and it comes with a soundtrack! According to P!nk, I’m not dead just floating. According to P!nk, I’m not scared just changing. Thank you, P!nk, for giving me a way to reframe my current experiences. And for being such a hot, powerful bad ass. Also, you wanna hang out sometime?