Last night I attended a church activity attended by a bunch of the women from my area's congregation. The lady that put the night together had requested "interesting facts" about ourselves a few weeks prior to the activity and I don't know why, but I decided that I was going to share something about my hairy (or lack thereof) situation. The fact I gave her was "I shave my head on a regular basis." Most of the women that I knew would be in attendance don't know about my Alopecia, and the few that do know haven't seen me without my wig. I don't know what possessed me to be so personal, but I guess I just wanted to see what would happen with that little bit of information.

As the night and the activity progressed, we got around to playing Jeopardy with the facts that the activity planner had collected. It was really fun to hear interesting things about the other women, but I was growing nervous of when my little tidbit of information would come up. Finally, someone chose my fact and I wondered if they would know right away who it was, or if it would be a shock. It was a multiple-choice question, and I think that given the fact that the "contestant" knew the other choices/women better, she figured out that by default, the correct answer had to be me.

When she guessed correctly, I decided that I was going to "prove" that fact to be true. I lifted my wig to show my shiny dome and the small patches of hair that still need to be shaved away. Everyone was shocked, but it was because they had no idea I wore a wig. The women around me complimented me and no one seemed weirded out in the least. I was very surprised at myself for being THAT open about my situation. I felt good about it. I think my biggest worry now is not that people are going to be weird in regards to their new knowledge about my hair situation, but rather that they may think I was looking for attention. That is completely opposite of the type of person I am, so hopefully those women can see that as well.

Here's hoping that de-wigging myself was a good thing!