My Curse and My Blessing.

February 29th, 2008:

Most girls in our modern-day world baby their hair like it's their pet. They smother it with conditioner, straighten it till it looks like it will break from frizz, and refrain from any shape or form of cutting it. I used to be one of those. I woke up two hours before I had to get on the bus just so I could do my long hair (it was almost down to my waist). Shower, blow dry, brush, style. That was my daily routine. My hair always turned out frizzy because of me damaging it. Then when I got to school, somebody would try to braid my hair and I'd say, "Don't touch the hair." I was so possessive over it; it was a necessity. I pictured myself with locks down to the buttocks by the time I was a senior in high school. It never occurred to me that I would one day be forced to have short hair.

All of my fantasies of the flowy, brush-your-fingers-through-it hair were washed away in January of 2006. One day when I was walking back from the bus with my friend Alissa, she said to me, "Alana, it looks like you're like seventy." Naturally, I asked why she would make such a comment. She told me my hair line was receding. I ran home and noticed she was right. So I asked my mom what could have caused it. She told me it was probably that my ponytails were too tight, which was believable, because I really did tie them too tight. So I stopped wearing my hair up. Then I noticed patches in my hair where I could see my skin. Not only that but when I was in the shower, my hair would come out in clumps. One day I asked my dad about it and he said I might have ringworm because of my brother's wrestling. Ringworm is spread easily on wrestling mats. I initially was angered with my brother, but then, I don't know why, I went on a rampage. I threw out all of the possible creams that could have given me an allergic reaction, just in case. The next thing I knew my parents had called up our family doctor. We called him . He told me I probably had Alopecia, not ringworm. He told us Alopecia is a disease where you lose your hair, and that we should see a dermatologist for an official diagnosis.

The dermatologist's office we went to was filled with zitty guys and annoying kids dragged along by their parents. I felt like I didn't belong in that weird place and wanted to leave, but then I met my dermatologist. She was a spontaneous, nice person. When she told me that I either had Alopecia or something mania (a disease I don't remember the name of when you pull your own hair out unconsciously), I was kind of sad, but she didn't give me pity. She just made me laugh. She said that Alopecia isn't predictable and that I will probably have to fear it recurring during my life as it can happen again at any time. She told me I most likely didn't have the mental disease; she thought I had Alopecia. It was nice to finally know what was going on, so I didn't have to feel the uncertainty of not knowing what was wrong with me. Even though I knew I had Alopecia, I felt at the time that I was glad I knew what was wrong. It didn't occur to me that I was lucky. Now that I think back, I realize I was lucky. It wasn't anything serious.

I managed to salvage one strip of hair in the back of my head for two months, but one day I realized it was dead and hanging on by only a few strands. I knew that my hair wouldn't be able to grow in that spot until the dead hair fell out, so I just pulled it off. From that day on, I wore bandannas around my head wherever I went. The only time I took it off was when I slept or the few times it fell off in the town pool. Only a handful of people saw me without my bandanna while I was bald. I knew that if I was someone looking in at me with a bald head, I would think it was gross, so I put something over it. I didn't want to draw too much attention to myself.

The people at school would gossip about me having cancer, which was kind of annoying, because I didn't. When I told them I had Alopecia they usually reacted with "oh, that's not that bad." This made me angry. No, it may not be bad but I LOST ALL MY HAIR. I wanted to scream it at them; it was what made me a girl. I felt so ugly that my relationships suffered. One month before any of this had happened I had a boyfriend. He was still going out with me one month into the Alopecia ordeal. I told him on the phone one day and he said he didn't care. Even though he said that, I avoided him because I didn't want him to see me. Then one day, I ran away from him. He called me up that night and said we should break up. It was a wake-up call, even though I was expecting as much.

I felt like telling everyone who said "it's not that bad" that it was bad. It may not be life threatening, but it was mentally bad. It ended up eating at my self-esteem. Now that I'm looking back, two years later, I realize what and idiot I was. I was so materialistic about something like hair that I created my own downfall.

I may say that I was an idiot and materialistic but in truth I still am. I may not want hair as much as I used to, but I still like to have some hair to play with. One day last summer a lady at a fair said to me, "The little things don't really matter anymore, after going through something like that, right?" She was right. Little things like popularity or long, flowy hair I'm no longer envious of. Now I'm just indifferent towards them. If I could, I would wish for another inch or two so I could style my hair better, but that's all. Long hair was too much for me to maintain anyway. I have advice to anyone who thinks looks and things like hair are everything: they're not. They're like accessories that go with your outfit, but when it comes down to it, you don't need it.

August 13th, 2010:

It has been nearly 5 years since I lost all of my hair, and let me tell you, I think I forgot about it until I found this article that I wrote 2 years ago. It all just feels like a bad dream where I over-reacted over something seemingly so stupid. Hair is really deep skin follicles, nothing more, nothing less. Those girls in those magazines with that nice, sexy hair? Hair follicles prettied up to convince gullible women into buying their product. But for what? To attract men, to make ourselves feel superior, to value ourselves more highly? But why?

Just two weeks ago I had hair down to my shoulders. Yes, I had become prey for the allure of beauty, but then I found myself looking in the mirror thinking, is that it? This what I wanted to feel? In the mirror I saw a young women with defined cheekbones, rose lips, and black hair. By this time, I had become accustomed to wearing 5-inch heels, sexy GUESS dresses, 120$ shirts, and 70$ make-up. I felt like such a mystery, a beauty. You know what, hell, I don't care if I sound arrogant, but I was hot. Yet, it was just like I said: The young woman in the mirror was a beautiful mystery. She was not who I really was, she was who I was pretending to be.

I had seen a movie a little while earlier, and I remembered seeing a woman who resembled me quite a lot. She had all the same features and even style, just a tad taller. She was sexy, strong, and independent, or at least, that's what I labeled her as. I have come to realize this was all I really wanted, to become sexy while still strong and independent. But did I really feel that way, simply because of my new addition of silky hair? No. I felt like the same girl who didn't know how to answer people when they asked her if she had cancer.

So what did I do? I called up a hair salon and made an appointment for the very next day. I went into the little hair salon as the shy beauty, and I came out as the forward woman I now know that I am. My hair is now very short in places, bleached down the center, and an array of colors in other places. I had gotten myself a mohawk. And you know what? I felt like I was no longer hiding behind my obsession with hair, instead I was bringing in my inner beauty to the fore-front: my independence, creativity, and uniqueness.

I am happy to say I am not that girl on the cover of Vogue who is nothing more than an image. I was a living, breathing female being who was trying to find herself. And I now am a women, not a pretty picture.

100% Fact.