Balding

For the first twenty years of my life, my hair and scalp lived side-by-side in mutually benefic ial harmony. My thick hair provided shade and protection and invited many hypnotic head scratches. My scalp, in return, provided prime real estate atop my dome for my hair to dwell as well as roots that would hold in hurricane-like winds. Conditions appeared ideal for both sides and peace seemed like it would be never-ending.

Then, without warning, the peace dissolved. Without warning, anti-filament fundamentalist insurgents led an uprising of unprecedented proportions. In the shower, scores of innocent victims washed away down the drain to be forgotten forever every single day. Seeing that the fundamentalists were gaining support, my forehead decided to join the slaughter and began a slow but methodically thorough assault on the hair’s front border. With an insurgent war quickly growing from within and now a full-on forehead attack encroaching steadily, thousands fled. These refugees had to abandon their first class abodes for less prestigious landscapes (namely my chest, stomach, back, and – for a very unlucky few – even further down that side). Now, my scalp and forehead have turned from outright violence to a more subtle means of destruction: chemical warfare. By utilizing a potent hormone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT), they have effectively prevented the hair population from reproducing, ensuring a slow and systematic extinction for any of those choosing to remain on top of my head.

Ok, so you’re probably thinking, Eh, I think this guy’s overdramatizing starting to lose his hair. And you know what? You’re probably right. But regardless of how excessively insecure and paranoid I may have been about the early stages of hair loss, it happened nonetheless.

I swear it started in Tijuana, during a service trip in the Fall of 2007. Washing the cement off myself in the dribbling cold water, I extracted enough hair to roll up in a ball and choke a cat. Panicking, I told my co-leader, “I think I’m balding.” She gave my head a superficial inspection and said, “Tom, you’re crazy.” I tried taking her word for it, but by the end of the week I swear I could’ve made a toupee with all the hair I lost. No one seemed to notice.

For a while, it seemed like I was maintaining my lush Jew-fro despite the near-handfuls of dead follicles found in my hands every time I showered. Concerned but wanting to appear cool about the whole thing, I would joke to friends about my balding. “Tom, you’re crazy. You’re not balding,” they’d always respond.

After the most stressful semester of my life ended and I prepared for my semester in Germany, I let myself relax. I told myself, So what? You lost a little hair. It’s probably just stress-induced. It’ll grow back if you calm down. Yeah… just calm down. Surprisingly, my friends back home didn’t make any jokes about it. While at ‘Nova, I figured people were just being polite and trying to ease my balding fears with white lies. Back home, my friends aren’t nearly so considerate. If I were actually losing my hair, I’d hear about it within minutes of our first diner trip. I expected the worst. I could only imagine the jokes that would come. Hey Mr. Clean, maybe we can use your head next time we go bowling. But there were no jokes, nor were they any comments, observations, or even inquisitive stares at my scalp. I dodged the bullet, for now.

By the time I got to Germany, I had developed this nasty habit of appraising the hair situation on all of my male peers. I would look at someone and think, Damn. I wish my hair was still that thick, or, Hey, he’s balding and he’s still a decent looking guy, or, Ew! His hairs so greasy and scraggly. Is that going to be me? Much to my personal disappointment, I found myself playing the appraiser once again. Once again, I became self-conscious about the half-centimeter of scalp that might be poking through my once overgrown locks.

There were only three instances all semester where someone directly pointed out my balding, but my insecurity was rampant enough to turn these off-hand comments into a death sentence for my potential to be a semi-attractive young man. The first came in a bar. While I was sitting at a table in O’Kelly’s Irish pub, my friend – whom I had a slight thing for – scratched the back of my head and exclaimed in fear, “Oh my God Tom! You’re going to be bald in two weeks!” Though she was drunk, the words echoed in my lesser self’s head. The second came two months later after Fucking Tony – we called him “Fucking Tony” because almost everything this kid did made you want to hold your face, shake your head, and mumble “Fucking Tony” – had a little too much to drink. On our way to a bar, he snuck up behind me and screamed, “Hey Tom, what’s this?” as he swirled his finger around the tiny but expanding scalp yarmulke. Although my other friends rebuked him for his clear violation of Man Code, no amount of retributive man justice ease my once-again insecure mind. Finally, about a month later, my roommate called me via Skype to talk for the first time in months. The first words out of his mouth: “Thomas! You’re balding!”

Finally, I couldn’t take worrying about my hair anymore. If I couldn’t handle living with it, I was going to learn how to live without it. With only three weeks left in Europe and only a couple more days in my apartment I asked my roommate Freddy to buzz my hair. Reluctantly he agreed, and before I knew it I was sitting shirtless on a chair in the middle of our living room with my heavily bearded roommate sheering off the source of my worries. My other roommate Baddy (pronounced ‘Buddy’) nervously/curiously looked on. With each tuft of hair that floated to the floor, Baddy’s face grew more and more concerned until he finally had to say it: “Tom… ehh… your hair’s not that dense.” “Thanks for the encouragement, Baddy,” I spit back defensively.

I ran to the bathroom to shower and inspect the damage. As expected, my hair was thinning a decent amount, but miraculously – to be honest – I thought I looked pretty damn good with my new do. In the shower, I washed away the stubbly pieces of hair off my shoulders and watched them and my anxieties go down the drain. When I walked out of this shower, I thought, I’d act with a newfound sense of confidence and self-awareness. I’d tell the world, Yeah, I’m balding. But fuck it. I’ll be damned if I let a few less dead follicles on my head change who I am or who I want to be. After drying off and getting dressed, even Baddy had to admit, “You know, Tom, it’s not that bad.”

My reinvented confidence lasted for a few weeks, but coming home proved to be harder than I’d anticipated. Before long, I found myself playing the hair appraiser once again. Slowly and subtly, I began losing my new attitude and my new peace of mind along with it. I began searching for long-shot, farfetched explanations as to how a young man such as myself could inexplicably lose so much hair so quickly. Didn’t that doctor in Germany say my slow reflexes could be a sign of a thyroid problem? Couldn’t a thyroid problem cause me to bald prematurely? And what about my chest hair? I lose an awful lot of that, too. That can’t be healthy. Yeah, it must be my thyroid.

I decided to see a doctor to get a blood test – despite the fact that I had secretly seen a dermatologist in December and he said it was simple male pattern baldness. I scheduled an appointment, and before I knew it I was sitting on the exam table waiting for the doctor to come in and stick me. He walked in and he was as bald as bald can get. I was not sure whether this should be comforting or if I was somehow looking into my own personal future, so I ignored both thoughts. He listened patiently and open-mindedly as I explained my delusional concerns and he suggested the blood test. Of course, I had to come back for the results.

A week later, I found myself sitting on the same sterile paper waiting nervously. Deep down, I knew what the lab results would say, but my insecure, superficial side still clung to the Hail Mary hopes that I had some mild curable disease that simply caused hair loss and minor fatigue the day following every night I stayed up too late. The doctor came in and explained to me as simply as he could that I had standard MPH. My testosterone levels were high, my cholesterol was low (and I had a high percentage of the good kind), and there were no signs of any thyroidal hormones being out of whack. My shallow hopes were crushed and, as the doctor continued to speak, I sat transfixed by the reality that I could no longer deny.

When my mind could focus on his words, he was explaining how well Rogaine and Propetia worked for maintaining hair and even regrowing it in 80% of cases. He said for him it would be too late, but for someone like me it would most likely be very effective. The only catch: I’d only keep my hair as long as I kept using the foam and taking the pill (which, by the way, decreases sexual ability). But once I stopped using either, I’d not only start losing my hair again, but – like Cinderella turning back to her raggedy self after midnight – I’d also lose all the hair I’d magically maintained over the course of my treatment.

I did not like this. While I did not want to lose my hair, what I really was looking for was some peace of mind. I imagined myself rubbing in the Rogaine every day, constantly inspecting my scalp to see if it was working and checking my hands in the shower to make sure I wasn’t losing an abnormal amount of hair. If anything, I pictured myself being more paranoid and self conscious using these products. The last thing I wanted was to be insecure and live in the fear of what I’d look like if I didn’t take my Propetia every day.

I told him my fears, but he insisted, “Son, you should keep your hair.” I let him write me a prescription, but I had absolutely no intention of using it. Walking out of his office, I felt a similar sense of determination as I did after my sheering in Germany. If I was going to lose my hair so be it. I would never judge someone else by the thickness of the hair on their head and I could not believe that I had let something so shallow pervert my mind for so long. After all, I was healthy in every other imaginable way, and for that I should always be eternally grateful. I realized the process of acceptance would still be gradual and I’d still have freakout moments, but I decided then to approach these moments with patience and as exceptions to what would be the rule of my normal way of looking at myself. I decided to appreciate the hair that I had while I still had it, and let it go as it went, one falling strand at a time.