Loss

This photo has been heavily filtered for your viewing pleasure.
And I just colored my hair, so all of my grays are covered for a full 24 hours.

I feel the loss.  Mostly when I'm in the shower mid conditioner ineptly squatting down shaving my legs contemplating the wading pool full of water at my feet encroaching on my ankles.  Because now that I'm in my mid-forties I have more hair clogging my shower drain than I have on my head.  Just when I thought I loved my forties, with this new found confidence to be the person I truly am.  Although I barely recognize myself anymore, I blame my declining post forty vision.  And there's nothing to see here anyway but weight gain, sun damage, scowl lines and gray hairs.

Oh, and now slowly going bald. 

When I was little my mom made me keep my hair short.  She was especially fond of the pixie cut.   Which, if you're unfamiliar,  is basically what they call it when a girl has a boy's haircut. I'd beg her to let me grow my hair out like the Bionic Woman, the only feminist with fantastic hair I knew back then.  Instead she let me experiment with the frumpy haircuts of the day like the Dorothy Hamill cut.  Which is basically a pixie cut with 3 months of growth.  So...bonus, I didn't even really need anyone to cut my hair at all.  Which might explain why I'm extremely hair challenged, because I never really had much to work with growing up.   Which was a huge setback for my hair growth, if you know what I mean.

Of course, it got worse before it got better.        

When I was in high school just outside of Buffalo, I used to walk to school with wet hair. So, in the winter  my short feathered hair froze and was white by the time I got to school.  Making me look like one of the Golden Girls.  (And I'm sure I looked more Dorothy than Blanche.)  In my senior year, I grew the back out into a mullet. Blame the 80's.  In college I shaved the sides off to create a super mullet.  Blame my poor taste.  Before I finally grew it out, which took the rest of college.  And by my senior year I had the big Aussie Sprunch sprayed New Jersey mall hair of my dreams.  In the twilight of the trend.  Then I moved to Miami cut it into a bob, dyed it black and straightened it. Which was both ridiculously unflattering and futile for curly hair in ridiculously humid climate.  What can I say? Those were the Janine Garafallo years.  (Although, I actually looked more like Rumer Willis.)  My longest hairstyle, was when I wore it up for over a decade because I simply didn't know what to do with it.  Then there was that time I shaved it off entirely for charity.  Which did break up the decade long up-do.  So, there's that. 

Basically, I've had forty years of atrocious hair.

Then, last year I ran into someone who had virtually the same kind of hair as mine.  Really thin and fine with lose curls.  And she told me step by step how to take care of my hair like I was in a remedial beauty school class.  Comb it in the shower with conditioner on.  Gently pat dry with a soft towel.  Use mousse.  Blow dry with a diffuser.  (The last step I translated into air dry because I'm lazy and short on patience.)  That was it.   It was the owner's manual I never had.  This is when I started wearing my hair down and curly as nature intended.  In a nice shade of auburn nature didn't provide, but Natural Instincts in a box did.  It only took me 45 long years to figure out what to do with my hair.  

Now my good hair years are being cut short.

This is some cruel joke right?  I'm blaming it all on my mom, because I inherited her hair.  Unless I blame perimenopause.  Or Donald Trump.  He just seems like a good scapegoat for everything. Anyway, I bought a natural hair loss shampoo and conditioner to take matters into my own two lather laden hands.  Except I forgot to take a photo of how much hair was left in my comb before I started using the shampoo to compare with how much is left in the comb now.  How am I going to know if it's working or not?  I guess I'll know if I have to start doing the comb over like Trump.