Tints

It's all about how we view our world. The color of the shades drawn over our eyes, the color of the glass we are squinting out of. None of us are free from tinted filters. When I lost my hair, I was on one side of the glass where everything was drab, flesh-colored. I mean my flesh. The color of Caucasian skin that has not seen sun. Not translucent, but definitely that humiliating color of paste. The world one the other side seemed to have so much color. Flowing reds, flax and golden waves, onyx black. You get the idea. Hair. Everyone had it and it was so colorful and long and soft. Feminine. Attractive. Healthy.

Now I see the entire world, with me in it, through different filters depending on my circumstances. Today the world is pink. Soft on a foggy winter's day that feels like spring, relaxed and hopeful. And I feel classy, feminine. In the 5 years that I have been dealing with Alopecia Universalis, I have come to at least see the world without a glass partition cutting me off from everyone else. Even if my world is colored (sometimes a melancholy blue, sometimes a cliche envious green, sometimes a forbidden red), it is a world I can move around in without shame.