As today marks the first day of the new year I thought I would continue with a New Year tradition - the making of a New Year resolution. In the past I have not kept my resolutions and I think that the lack of reasonability is to blame. My cure this year is to make one that I am actually capable of keeping. I resolve to teach all that I come in contact with in the New Year about Alopecia Areata. My goal is to change the stigma that a bald woman is either crazy or has cancer. I want to use my difference to change the world.
Over the course of the past three months I have seen all the hair on my head fall out. I have watched as my leg hair disappeared (YAY!) and the loss of arm hair. Then came my eyebrows and now my eyelashes are going. I have had to grieve for the loss of my hair and then find a way to move on, a way to come to love the new, and I think improved, Valerie. Although I don't claim that losing your hair is a good thing, I think that the timing on my hair loss could not have been more perfect - I had moved away from home to attend college and I was in the process of finding out who I was. I had been thrown into a speech class that I did not want to take as I hate speaking in front of people and had to conquer that fear. Towards the end of the semester I had gained so much confidence and then AA struck (cue villian music). My speech class taught me that what I have to say is important. This helped me to cope. The class was so supportive and they really helped me to come to see that I was still me, just different on the outside. This villian, AA, did not change me in a bad way, but really helped me to become more confident. I was so terrified of being really different. I wanted to feel that I belonged. The AA helped me to realise that everyone is different in there own way, mine difference is just more visible.
I make a pact with myself on this, the first day of January in the year of 2009 that I am going to make a difference and change the world. I am not capable of irridicating world hunger or ensuring world peace in 2009 (at least not in twelve months), but I, Valerie, can change the world in my own way. I can teach others that everyone is different (Thank goodness!) and that we should celebrate our differences. I can teach others that bald is beautiful and not every bald woman has cancer or is pulling a Sinead O'Connor. I can show others that what I once saw as a villian and a curse can turn into a blessing.
Although I wish I had my hair I am so thankful that I have AA. I have something that has given me confidence by bringing me down and forcing me to build myself back up.
Thank you AA and to all of you that have helped me on my journey!
May you all have a blessed 2009!