I deleted the first couple of paragraphs to this piece a few times. Just didn’t know how to get the words down without sounding foolish. The topic is one most guys going through it won’t talk about. It was hard for me to handle coping with a loss this big at such a young age. It’s something no man, at any age, but especially a young man, should have to go through. I’m talking about hair. That’s right, hair loss.

This story starts as far back as 2002. Here I was, a 13-year-old boy with two interests—basketball and girls. Back than Allen Iverson was king. He was by far the most popular player at the time. This is a fact. Don’t look for the asterisk next to that statement. I don’t have the numbers to back that claim, but I’m pretty sure I’m right. He was on the first two or three covers of SEGA Dreamcast’s NBA 2K series covers. Iverson was small and his game was flashy. Kids loved him. We wanted to be like him. He looked like we did and played like we did at the park, except he did it in the NBA. I decided to grow my hair out, so I could get braids. It seemed like the natural thing to do. Girls loved Iverson just as much as we loved watching him play.
Eventually, my hair grew long enough and I begged my mother for money to go get my hair done. After a massive amount of pleading, my mother gave me the money and I headed down the street to a local Jamaican hair parlor. The place was empty except for one woman, who was fiddling with her nails. I told her what I was there for, money still in hand. The process was much more intense than I had expected.  When she finished with my hair, I was in so much pain, but I’d like to think it was all worth it. I had the Iverson look.

Monday came and I was ready for school, head still throbbing from how tight the do was. A few girls complimented me on the look and suddenly the throbbing headache didn’t seem that bad. That affirmation didn’t last long as the headaches continued until I couldn’t take it any more. I undid the magic one braid at a time. Later that night, my father saw my Afro and demanded I go to the barber and cut all my hair off. That was the saddest day of my life. My father was a bald man, so I figured he was jealous of the locks. If you ever saw my father, you’d know he wasn’t a man you’d want to talk back to, so I never got an answer as to why he made me cut my hair. Here was where things confused me. Once my hair was all gone, I noticed one side of my hairline was curling up where it once just laid there. That was the beginning—of the end, that is.

My long hair was gone, but it wasn’t so bad. One of my best friends at the time had short hair and had waves in his hair. We called it 360 waves. Once I saw that I knew I had to have it. I asked questions, did the research, like any young scientist would and went out and got what I needed. I asked my friend, Julian, how does he get his hair to look like that. It was simple; all I needed was a brush, a du rag, and some Murray’s. The Murray’s I’m referring to is hair pomade. It’s a thick wax-like material. It was the color of cardboard box brown and smelled like it came from your great-grandmother’s cabinet. Julian should have warned me not to use too much. When you apply too much, your hair shines like high-definition headlights and your head feels heavier. The things you do for a girl’s attention.

By the end of high school, that little curl that was worrying me at 13 was happening on the other side of my hairline. I thought, “Can’t be. I’m too young for this to be happening to.” I used to love showing off my hair and the different styles I would put it through, but now I was finding comfort in hats. My collection of hats was growing and I wasn’t showing off anymore, I was hiding it. I was embarrassed and really self-conscious about what people thought about me. In college, I wore hats everywhere. I would have showered with a hat on if I could. I hated how I looked and didn’t know what to do. My hairline was receding faster than I could take those tight braids out in middle school. The thing about losing hair was it didn’t just stop at the hairline, you guessed it, I grew a bald spot—at 22. It was once my pride and joy and now I hated everything about my hair. It felt like the entire room all turned in unison to look at me when I took my hat off at places you kind of had to, like the barbershop. My barber was cool; he tried his best work with what I gave him. He’s the real MVP.

Eventually, I did what I was scared to and just shave it all off. Looking back, I should have done it sooner, but hey, now when I watch NBA TV occasionally there’ll be a Hair for Men commercial with old men and they’re all stoked about having their hair back. You can see the happiness on their face. It’s real. Do I wonder about going that route? Sometimes. Being completely bald now at 27 isn’t so bad. I’m technically old, right?