One of the most frightening things about losing my hair was what the public reaction would be. In the weeks leading up to becoming completely bald, I drove myself crazy thinking about what others might do to me. That’s all changed, of course. Now I never shy away from social situations, at least not because I’m bald.
Over the past week or so, I’ve actually participated in poking fun at my baldness. At a Memorial Day pool party, to which two of my friends (we’ll call them H and E, for privacy) also came, we had fun after the fact in the locker room. It started in the shower, when E asked me, “Hey, do you need a razor?” I giggled and replied,
“I don’t need a razor. I don’t have any leg hair.” We were all on the front end of puberty, and she had forgotten that I didn’t have any reason to shave. When I came out of the shower, I found both of them struggling to untangle a knot in E’s blond hair. “You have any ideas, Pey?” H turned to me, her hand wedged into a giant tangle in E’s hair.
“Nope. This hasn’t happened to me in at least two years.” We ended up cutting E’s Gordian knot using detangler spray lended to us by another poolgoer. It just goes to show how your friends can forget about your baldness and make you feel like one of them.
Just today, I happened to be at swim practice (oh yeah, I forgot to mention I moved up a level in swim, from Bronze 2 to Silver), and at the end of the practice all of us climbed out onto the pool deck. One of the boys and I started joking around about my “invisible hair”. “Yeah, and your hair is so long that even if you lap someone, they can still pull your hair. Oops, it’s in the pool now, go pick it up!”
“It’s like I’m negative Rapunzel,” I laughed with him for a minute as I packed up my swim bag. We parted ways, and I kept laughing in my head all the way to the car.
So what’s the moral of the story? When you’ve known someone long enough, they won’t care about your hair, or lack thereof. Even if you lost the last of your hair yesterday, give your friends time and they’ll be cool with it.
Also, a side note: I found the poem set for this post’s image after a search under “what alopecians can do.” The author remained anonymous, but I think it sums up what my haicomp (haiku compilation) Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow said. Check it out with that link. Anyways, have a great day!
-Peyton
peytonpecia 