How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love My Bald Head

I will never forget the first time I realized I was losing my hair.

Every morning I’d wake up to a LOT of hair on my pillow. And yes, it was MY hair.

Hair started collecting more than usual every day when I’d wash my hair.

Not good.

And then to top it all off, I remember the exact place I was in when I noticed the thinning hair as I changed at a department store when those double mirrors in the dressing rooms.

It was shocking to say the least. So shocking that I immediately went into denial.

Maybe it was just a little stress. I could work on that.

Or maybe the hairs in the shower were several days worth?

Maybe those mirror were playing tricks on me at the store. Or maybe it was the lighting that was thin, not my hair.

But it continued to happen.

I was losing my hair.

And I was just 24 years old. Ouch. This isn’t the way I thought it would play out.

I’d keep my healthy head of hair and start losing it maybe at, oh, 80? 90? Never?

But it wasn’t meant to be. I was going bald in my mid 20s.

I panicked. I cried. I let myself get down about it.

Then I found myself in pharmacy aisles more embarrassed than if I were buying girlie magazines.

I had boxes of Rogaine and similar hair regrowth products in my nervous hands.

I watched infomercials in the middle of the night and saw these guys getting out of swimming pools with hair that looked real. Well, it WAS real. It was THEIR hair. Transplanting from other parts of their head, according to the commercials.

Eventually, I started taking Propecia for my hair loss.

It didn’t seem to help and I stopped it anyway when my first born was about to come into the world because of the rare possible risk of birth defects.

That’s when it struck me.

My vanity–yes, it was all vanity and pride–could possibly lead to irreparable harm to my unborn child.

No way was getting a few peach fuzz hairs growing on the top of my shiny plate worth potential harm to my child.

I stopped.

I stopped combing my hair in creative ways and just cropped it. First a very close buzz cut and then the total shave that I sport today.

The reason for this blog is that I read a story today about a George Washington University study showing that use of this same drug I used may increase a man’s risk of depressive thoughts and even suicidal ones.

Guys, look. Some of us are going to go bald. It’s just the way it goes. It’s NATURAL.

Stop fighting it!!

It’s all THE EGO that drives our obsessive and expensive and ridiculous efforts to PRETEND we aren’t bald.

Put those thousands of dollars a year you’re spending on drugs and surgeries into your retirement account or your child’s college savings. You are lighting money on fire. And for what?? Your EGO??

And whatever you do, PLEASE get rid of the rug. Honestly. No offense, but toupees fool NO ONE. If anything, they draw MORE attention and MORE snickers and MORE stares your way.

NOBODY is buying it. Even Hollywood actors and celebrities with far more money than the rest of us can’t seem to buy a toupee that FOOLS anyone. Have you noticed that?

Wearing a toupee is like taking a marker to your head and writing: “I am bald!! See?? I am pretending I am not, but I AM bald!! Wanna stare at me??”

Here’s what you need to do. Honestly. It’s very simple.

Accept that you are bald. Love yourself the way you look bald.

You wouldn’t in a million years believe that a green sweater in your closet makes you who you are. Or a certain pair of jeans. That’s silliness. Because if that sweater or jeans disappeared in a fire or were lost, what would you be THEN? A nobody?

Nope. You’d still be a SOMEBODY.

You’d be…YOU. Just the person you were supposed to be in the first place.

Guys, you aren’t defined by your hair anymore than you are defined by green eyes or brown. You just THINK you are.

You are defined by what is INSIDE of you.

Not what the EGO says you are. The Ego says you are what you drive, what you do, and what you own.

The REAL you knows better. Far better.

Stop pretending that hair matters as much as it does. It doesn’t.

Shave that head, guys! Be proud of who YOU are! Shed those silly toupees that look like an animal crawled up on your head and died there! Shed those pills with side effects that are infinitely worse than having a proud, bald head.

I have never looked back. I have no regrets, no bitterness or sadness or resentment.

Life is too short to worry about such silliness anyway.

I wish you a fantastic day and good cheer as you embark on this amazing journey of self acceptance and love.