The first day of school, fall of 2014. I’m a high school Spanish teacher, and I was getting ready to go to work. I looked in my bathroom mirror, and all I could focus on was my bald head. Never mind my carefully penciled eyebrows, my more-confident-than-I-felt smile. My eyes were drawn to my hairless scalp, and I knew everyone else’s would be too. My colleagues, my students… was I ready to have them all staring at me, wondering or even asking if something was wrong? I’d never liked calling attention to myself.
So much had changed in the two and a half years since I’d noticed the first signs of hair loss. I’d never given my hair much thought before that. In high school, I’d been an athlete, so I mostly kept my hair in a ponytail. During college, then my early years as a teacher and wife, I wore it long, curls cascading to my shoulders. My first daughter was born in 2009. A few minutes of styling
