Hair loss, friends, and time
Today I woke up and looked in the mirror for the seven thousandth time this week and made a realization and a decision about my life. About a month ago I decided that I was going to grow my hair out. Ever since I was a kid I've loved rock and roll and always wanted to have long hair. When I was 12 a friend of mine got me hooked on Metalica and I wanted to look like the guys in the band. I grew my hair out for almost a year and then my parents came down on me and forced the hair to go. When I was in college I decided that after spring football was over I would stop shaving my head for good. It lasted all summer until the first week of football camp in August when I realized that 135 degree heat, 100% humidity, a 325 lb body, a full head of hair, and a helmet really didn't all go together. So that brings me to the present. I had been letting my hair do what came natural for about a month for the first time in about 4 years. I kept looking at the sides of the front of my head and thinking to myself "ah, it's just thin because I wear a helmet. Ah, it's really just me being over self conscious. Ah, it's nothing, just let it grow in and nobody will notice." I was wrong. I have been wearing a hat because my hair is neither long nor short and just kinda sits there all a mess with nothing a comb could possibly do to save it so I wasn't sure if it was hair loss or just scary ass hat head.
This brings me to why today was any differnet than any other day. Today is Thanksgiving and I had family coming over and a day off from work, but more importantly it's the day before my 5 year highschool reunion. The reunion of the Roxbury High School class of 1999 was actually arrainged at a bar about 40 minutes from town by a couple of chicks I graduated with that had nothing to do with student affairs whatsoever in high school but realized that our class president had no intrest in doing this and just set a date via classmates.com to meet up with whoever was around.
Now I know I'm jumping around in time and boring, but this is helping me more than it's helping you, so just SUCK IT UP! A few months back I ran into 3 of my closest high school buddies at a bar in town and sat down for a few beers. One guy looked the same he always has, one guy lost a lot of weight and looked a lot better, and one guy just looked old as hell to me. I just kept looking at my buddy and thinking, "damn, that guy looks so old. What the hell is different?" He had grown a goatee, but that wasn't it. He was well dressed, but he had always been the kinda kid to come to school in nice clothes so that definately wasn't it. IT WAS HIS FUCKING HAIR! His hair line had moved almost an indescribeable amount, and it didn't even stand out as different unless you looked close, but he no longer looked like a young man. I don't want to say he looked like shit because he is still in great physical shape (better than I'll ever be. He always has been in awesome shape. Reminds me of Ned Flanders) and is still just as much fun to hang out with as he was in high school, but the way his hair made him look like an old man was just plain scary.
So this morning I took a quick shower and just stood in front of the mirror for an hour. It was not hat head, it was not an optical illusion, it was not me being over critical of myself, it was hair loss. The left and right side of my hair are thinning and my hairline is slightly higher than I remember it. I agonized over what to do for almost another hour. I decided to grow my hair now because I believed this might be my last shot at healthy, full, long hair before my hair STARTED to get thin. It takes about a year and a half of growth before it's really comfortable and can be worn the way I really wanted to wear my hair and by 25.5 years old I figured I'd be pushing my luck. My father's whole family has thin hair and my mother's side of the family are all bald so I knew genetically the odds were against me. Today I realized for the first time that I am getting old. I dug out the clippers and cut off the inch or so of hair that I had grown. I have done this thousands of times, but this morning I was sad. Every time I made a pass I thought to myself "well, that's the last time that stripe will ever be that long." The worst part is that I knew that if I went to my high school reunion with my hair looking the way it did I would be perceived as looking "old" as compared with the guy wearing aviator sunglasses and a blue graduation gown of so few years ago.
Today was the first time in my life I realized that physically I am going to lose things that I can never get back. I've sat too many hungover afternoons watching ESPN classic to think that I am going to be a healthy, strong, athletic young man for the rest of my life. I heard a quote that I will not be able to reproduce a while back. I don't know if it was from a movie or some old football veteran or what, but he said something like, "I had everything. I was stronger and faster than any man. I thought I was going to live forever. Now, look at me. I wake up, and every day I have lost something. Every gift you have been given in life will be taken away in time. I just hope that what I have done will somehow live forever because I certainly will not." I know what I have "lost" is just a couple hundred strands of hair, but the fact that no matter what I do, no matter how badly I want it, no matter how hard I work, the fact that those hairs will never come back is frightning. Today it's just hair. What will be the next thing to go? I have dealt with losing a lot in my career as a football player and in other parts of my life, but everything I've lost to this point could be earned back or improved upon with hard work. Today I lost something I have no controll over. A couple months ago I felt like I could do anything. Today I realize that everything that I have has a duration and a closing that I have no control over. I have never felt so mortal and so weak in my life.
So tomorrow (technically today) I will go to work, do my job, clean up, and go meet up with a handfull of my old high school aquaintences. I don't like the location due to distance from home, but it will be nice to see a bunch of people who never gave me the time of day in high school acting like we are long lost friends. My important "reunion" will be on Saturday night when I meet up with all the people who really were/are my friends at another party for a friend's college graduation. As a side note, I don't know the standard operating procedure for naming names in a blog. As time goes on I'll try to be more clear. This guy graduated in 5 years with a double masters in engineering and tuba performance. He was our valedictorian and also one of my best friends since we were little kids. I am really looking forward to saturday because he only comes to town for a few days at a time and our interaction normally consists of the two of us stopping at a 711 for a coffee and bullshit session before he's back on the road to study with some legend of music or work on some important engineering project.
Well, seing as I have to get up for work in a few hours and I'm sure my "old at 23" stories SUCK I'm going to just end this here. I wanted to end with something special, but I don't have anything else to give. Thank you for reading my first entry. I hope that this small window into another average life has somehow entertained you.
This brings me to why today was any differnet than any other day. Today is Thanksgiving and I had family coming over and a day off from work, but more importantly it's the day before my 5 year highschool reunion. The reunion of the Roxbury High School class of 1999 was actually arrainged at a bar about 40 minutes from town by a couple of chicks I graduated with that had nothing to do with student affairs whatsoever in high school but realized that our class president had no intrest in doing this and just set a date via classmates.com to meet up with whoever was around.
Now I know I'm jumping around in time and boring, but this is helping me more than it's helping you, so just SUCK IT UP! A few months back I ran into 3 of my closest high school buddies at a bar in town and sat down for a few beers. One guy looked the same he always has, one guy lost a lot of weight and looked a lot better, and one guy just looked old as hell to me. I just kept looking at my buddy and thinking, "damn, that guy looks so old. What the hell is different?" He had grown a goatee, but that wasn't it. He was well dressed, but he had always been the kinda kid to come to school in nice clothes so that definately wasn't it. IT WAS HIS FUCKING HAIR! His hair line had moved almost an indescribeable amount, and it didn't even stand out as different unless you looked close, but he no longer looked like a young man. I don't want to say he looked like shit because he is still in great physical shape (better than I'll ever be. He always has been in awesome shape. Reminds me of Ned Flanders) and is still just as much fun to hang out with as he was in high school, but the way his hair made him look like an old man was just plain scary.
So this morning I took a quick shower and just stood in front of the mirror for an hour. It was not hat head, it was not an optical illusion, it was not me being over critical of myself, it was hair loss. The left and right side of my hair are thinning and my hairline is slightly higher than I remember it. I agonized over what to do for almost another hour. I decided to grow my hair now because I believed this might be my last shot at healthy, full, long hair before my hair STARTED to get thin. It takes about a year and a half of growth before it's really comfortable and can be worn the way I really wanted to wear my hair and by 25.5 years old I figured I'd be pushing my luck. My father's whole family has thin hair and my mother's side of the family are all bald so I knew genetically the odds were against me. Today I realized for the first time that I am getting old. I dug out the clippers and cut off the inch or so of hair that I had grown. I have done this thousands of times, but this morning I was sad. Every time I made a pass I thought to myself "well, that's the last time that stripe will ever be that long." The worst part is that I knew that if I went to my high school reunion with my hair looking the way it did I would be perceived as looking "old" as compared with the guy wearing aviator sunglasses and a blue graduation gown of so few years ago.
Today was the first time in my life I realized that physically I am going to lose things that I can never get back. I've sat too many hungover afternoons watching ESPN classic to think that I am going to be a healthy, strong, athletic young man for the rest of my life. I heard a quote that I will not be able to reproduce a while back. I don't know if it was from a movie or some old football veteran or what, but he said something like, "I had everything. I was stronger and faster than any man. I thought I was going to live forever. Now, look at me. I wake up, and every day I have lost something. Every gift you have been given in life will be taken away in time. I just hope that what I have done will somehow live forever because I certainly will not." I know what I have "lost" is just a couple hundred strands of hair, but the fact that no matter what I do, no matter how badly I want it, no matter how hard I work, the fact that those hairs will never come back is frightning. Today it's just hair. What will be the next thing to go? I have dealt with losing a lot in my career as a football player and in other parts of my life, but everything I've lost to this point could be earned back or improved upon with hard work. Today I lost something I have no controll over. A couple months ago I felt like I could do anything. Today I realize that everything that I have has a duration and a closing that I have no control over. I have never felt so mortal and so weak in my life.
So tomorrow (technically today) I will go to work, do my job, clean up, and go meet up with a handfull of my old high school aquaintences. I don't like the location due to distance from home, but it will be nice to see a bunch of people who never gave me the time of day in high school acting like we are long lost friends. My important "reunion" will be on Saturday night when I meet up with all the people who really were/are my friends at another party for a friend's college graduation. As a side note, I don't know the standard operating procedure for naming names in a blog. As time goes on I'll try to be more clear. This guy graduated in 5 years with a double masters in engineering and tuba performance. He was our valedictorian and also one of my best friends since we were little kids. I am really looking forward to saturday because he only comes to town for a few days at a time and our interaction normally consists of the two of us stopping at a 711 for a coffee and bullshit session before he's back on the road to study with some legend of music or work on some important engineering project.
Well, seing as I have to get up for work in a few hours and I'm sure my "old at 23" stories SUCK I'm going to just end this here. I wanted to end with something special, but I don't have anything else to give. Thank you for reading my first entry. I hope that this small window into another average life has somehow entertained you.
posted by NJX70 at 4:53 AM
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