Too much information, the universe is purring, and I need a new hairstyle.
Plus, do you think I'd look good bald?
Welcome back to On The Verge, a reader supported publication about finding wellness, then losing it and hopefully finding it again, and all the stuff that keeps me going along the way.
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Thanks for bearing with me while I navigate what I call my cocoon phase of life, where I slowly fall apart and dissolve (waaaah) so that I emerge as a new, fully formed version of myself. More on this later.
It’s probably the full moon but I’m thinking of shaving my head.
If you’re totally overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff that is out there for your consumption, me too. There is always something to read, to digest, to think on. My inbox is flooded with emails about sales and newsletters and more sales and more newsletters. It’s my fault because I signed up for those. On instagram there are captions and how-tos and should nots, tips and tricks and hacks for things I can’t remember because there is so much of it. My nightstand is cluttered with more to absorb. Books on conscious parenting, on the speed at which our lives pass us by, fictional stories of intimacy and friendship that feel real and the monthly editions of the Paris Review, which I rarely ever open but always want to.
I heard somewhere that modern humans are exposed to more information in 15 minutes than early humans were exposed to in an entire day. Or maybe it was that people before the internet and tv and especially before the iphone had less information and stimulation than us now in their entire week than in our one hour. With or without the details, we are bombarded by information and our brains haven’t evolved to be able to process it all. It’s all too much!
So now that you have that fun factoid, please continue reading what I have to say in this newsletter that was sent to your inbox and linked to on my instagram. Please consume this revelatory material from a woman in the elementary stage of parenting which allows her the illusion of more free time but actually comes with twice the amount of emotional and mental labor than the toddler stage because now the kids are “gone” and the pressure is on to perform.
What will you do with all your free time, they ask? Well, for starters I might begin to read an article I saw on the Atlantic’s instagram page about how scientists found ripples in space and time. I might read that and then think about how weird it is to be sitting on a plastic chair on a hardwood floor in a house built on top of bedrock in a neighborhood of San Francisco while me, the Universe and everything in it are all “vibrating in a collective purr”. When they said we were made of stardust, they weren’t kidding.
Or I might do a deep dive into the full moon in Capricorn that Chani said wouldn’t be a big deal but feels like it is because I have been crying into the void for hours wondering what I should do with my hair. My hair that falls just above my perky breasts, emphasizing my elongated nipples from years of babies and toddlers pulling and tugging on them with their teeth. My hair that frames my strong chin and prominent forehead, reminding me that faces change over time, losing baby fat and bounce. I know that this is obsessive. I’m not lost on the fact that going into a hair salon hoping for a haircut that will change the way I see myself is unrealistic. I’m aware that my attitude about hair is a stylists’s worst nightmare. Clients like me go into appointments saying they can never get a good haircut, that every stylist before them has fucked up their look. Clients like me leave with tears in their eyes after saying, no, I love it, it’s great. Clients like me go home and immediately wash their hair to be restyled in the way that they prefer, and still end up hating it, only to put their locks into a claw clip and curse the person who did this to them.
So I don’t book a haircut. Instead, I look at photos of women with shaved heads and I wonder if I could be them. I analyze my bone structure and the fullness of my lips to see if a buzz cut would suit me. I think about the dandruff I have on my scalp and convince myself that it’s probably seborrheic dermatitis or something worse, a fungal infection. Google tells me I could be allergic to the yeast that grows naturally on the human head. It’s a bad idea, I tell myself, going bald. But I still look at the photos, the models, the celebrities who have worn this hairstyle and I imagine how free I would feel if I didn’t have to think about my hair. I almost convince myself to do it but then I remember Britney and my OCD tells me that a shaved head could be dangerous, that I should be more careful.
To distract myself I get lost on the explore page. There is a photo of someone I recognize, but can’t place. I click on it and see it’s the girl from White Lotus, the assistant to Jennifer Coolidge. She’s so cute with her toothy smile and her colorful clothes. It must be nice to be an actress, I think, to have all those nice clothes that are most likely gifted. It must be nice to be a star, and have your talents recognized by people around you. Oh look, she’s a dancer. It makes sense now why her legs are so muscular, and her abs are so toned. Maybe I could do that too. Then I remember that my agent once sent me an audition that asked for Jen Coolidge vibes and how I tried my best to emulate her but still didn’t book the job. In my inbox there is another call for a self tape. This time I’m asked to dance with a wine bottle.
Not only is my hair a mess, my face aging and sad, but I’m also going to get rejected for yet another audition that I think was sent to me out of pity. I shouldn’t have opened my computer, I think. I should have stayed away from the internet and buried my nose in a book instead. It. Goes. So. Fast. It’s a book written by a woman who is an accomplished journalist and radio host on NPR. She writes about making choices between career and family and how it all goes by so quickly that you don’t even realize you’re almost out of chances to watch that soccer game. I can’t relate. I remember that I am just a collection of protons and neutrons, like all things in the Universe, and think maybe we are more alike than I first imagined. Maybe all I need to do is think positively and manifest my destiny. Maybe it is my negative energy that is preventing the Universe from rewarding me beyond my wildest dreams. But maybe that’s not what the article was suggesting at all and if my brain had evolved to filter out the constant stream of information, to pull the sense from the nonsense, I would have read the article to find out.
Some people hate the idea of cutting long hair especially if its healthy and thick like mine. But I don’t care. Look at these women.
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
