Occasionally I receive an email from someone saying that they wished they had my strength to handle alopecia -- as if I woke up one day without my hair and was immediately ok with it. As most members here would attest, that is hardly ever the case. Where I am today is probably where many of you will be tomorrow.

I wrote the following in response to one such email and thought that other members that are new to alopecia or struggling may benefit from it too:

You would be…

There are people lives that I believe I have touched because I was not afraid to show my “scars”.

Below is a song that the words ring so true to me and I wanted to share the lyrics with you.

Don’t Hide the Scars

(Michael Puryear/Cheryl Rogers/Jeff Silvey)

From CD: Sisters–The Story Goes On -1995

Vocals: Beverly Crawford/Cindy Morgan

I wept alone

Suffered on my own

I didn’t think that anyone would understand

Until…

My husband has been working on material for a class on character that he is teaching at a prison. He found himself researching Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who spent 8 years in an unfathomable labor camp for writing a derogatory comment about their country's leader in a letter to a friend. Solzhenitsyn later went on to write the classic book - The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956 - and in 1970 received a Nobel Prize in Literature.

These two quotes from his book have been circling my mind over…

Most of you know that I am from Canada and rj is American. So when we married we started a whirlwind of immigration processes. I had to file yet another form and get another set of biometric done. One of the steps was another photo session at the immigration office.

I filled out the form and clicked “bald” as my hair color. For a second I wondered if I should have clicked black, since it was an official government form and being AA my black hair does show if I don't shave daily. I…