Self Steam

I'm balding. Well, at least that's what my friends joke about a few weeks ago. They think my hair is thinning and my scalp is showing. "Finally it came" I told myself; I've been asked for so many times since college about my hair line or about my thin hair. I've heard the lines "ow nakikita rin anit mo?" or "shiny forehead, kasilaw dude" and things like that. So I told Jody about these issues -- she simply stared at my forehead and said "dati pa rin eh." then she joked "Nakakalbo ka pa rin". After a few grins, she said that "diet" and "hair thinning" comes in a package. I told her she was probably biased because she loves me, but her remark gave me a great relief "Matakot ka kung ako ng nagbiro, kasi totoo na yun." She was right.

But still I've decided to cut my hair short and the joking was replaced with my ifeminate hair style: my office mates now call me Gretch, since my hair looks like that of Gretchen Barreto. "Better than being teased as Aiza" I told them, pointing out that I was teased as Aiza a year ago. But then again, Aiza is more masculine than Gretch.

I guess you'll never escape the teasing part, no matter how well you look (or the opposite). Though the good part lately is that I get to joke about it and feel not a strand of self degradation. Though I got a stash of hair volumizing gel in the rest room courtesy of Jody; probably just to make me stop talking about my hairiness.

We sometimes feel low about things: about how fat or thin, about how broke or unhealthy, about our decaying relationships, about our unchanged appearance. But we tend to forget that all people share their own discontentment with life. We compare, then feel bad. We take notice of what we don't have then we feel bad. We linger for more then we still feel bad about it. So there's no other escape but to change the mindset.

I remember a joke about the man who took a plunge in a smelly septic tank for a million dollars bet. After winning, he took a bath but still smelled himself bad -- so he spent more than a million for cleansers, deodorants and other medications. After going back to being broke he scratched his nostril with his finger and felt a small uncleaned speck which remained after his unfortunate plunge. This small dot made the smell.

Lesson learned: never take a plunge with a hair like Gretchen.