Stage One: Denial
There if stood, a sentinel, a lookout, a hair strand of courage that stood at the point of my forehead where a widow’s peak once covered. I wondered if it could be a new hair, growing all by itself like a rose in a cornfield. However, my wife summed it up bluntly when she said, “You’re starting to lose your hair, honey.
True, I was starting to go bald. And I was also going to get my first divorce, However, losing my hair would have a much greater and longer lasting impact on my life. In my 20s, my date with destiny was set. My only option was to live it out and see where the cards — or the hair — would fall. Time would only tell if I would look like a calm and cool Telly Savales or a somewhat comical Jason Alexander. Could I ever wear a toupee like Burt Reynolds or NCIS’s Michael Weatherly?
I decided I wasn’t going bald. It was just my imagination. And so I trimmed my hair real short and in a semi-military style. Who could tell the difference from short hair to no hair? I mean, I couldn’t. Besides, I wasn’t going bald. So there was nothing to worry about.
Stage Two: Cover up
One day, while looking at the tumbleweed of hair blowing around the bottom of my bathroom sink, I began to realize that I was indeed, in fact, losing my hair. But I couldn’t let my friends know. I mean, I was in my 30s and happy in life. I wasn’t ready for a mid-life crisis caused by the shining dome I saw in a hand-held mirror. The only choice I had was to grow my hair long and way long at that. For the first time in nearly 20 years, my hair swayed down to my shoulders. The bald spot was gone. I looked cool. And that’s what all of my friends said to my face when I asked them. They wouldn’t lie to me. Would they?
Stage Three: Acceptance
But finally I realized that there was nothing I could do to ward off the retreating army of fate. The cans of hairspray I used to weld my remaining hair in place became too expensive to buy on what seemed like a daily basis. My friends could tell how terrible the next rain storm would be by the amount of ozone I personally depleted with an assault of hairspray on my remaining strands of youth. I was going bald. There was nothing I could do about it. It was time to be a man about the whole thing. I needed to accept it once and for all.
So, I grew a beard. And I grew a long one. Yes, Z.Z. Top kind of long.
