I never realized how concerned I was about the appearance of my hair until it started falling out. I’ve since spent a lot of time thinking about it.

When I was young my hair was a gorgeous auburn red. I often got comments from strangers about how beautiful it was. One of my friends nicknamed me “pretty hair” after a little girl remarked that the friend’s mane was not as nice as mine.

Then I got older, and unbeknown to me it started to turn more towards brown. I never really realized it was happening, until I got a comment about my brown hair from a coworker. I compared to earlier pics and determined that it was indeed getting darker. I was a bit dismayed, but not concerned enough to color it. It still looked nice. My dad helped me feel better about it by telling me it was just starting to look more like my mom’s color.

Our son was born with amazing red hair, even brighter red than mine had been. We get a lot of comments about it, including many asking where he gets it. It’s frustrating people can’t tell it’s in part because mine used to be red, not far off that shade, but I can see why it might be hard to tell.

About six months ago, my hair started falling out. It seemed I was getting more on my comb, but it wasn’t that noticeable. Then the shedding increased to where every time I comb it, I get a handful. Since my hair is really thick, it still hasn’t been that noticeable. Now it’s finally getting to the point where I can see that it’s thinning. When I noticed this, it really upset me. I got my hair cut shortly thereafter, and even though the person did an amazing job, I just wanted to cry.

It took a while for me to get over it, but now I’ve made peace with it (at least somewhat). There are people that lose their hair all the time, some temporarily, others permanently but usually in worse circumstances than I am facing. Out of all the things in the world to worry about! It’s just hair.