Balding Sucks!

Call me practical. Or better yet call me a realist. Or simply call me someone who admits defeat. For with each year I get older I become more willing to accept the changes that my body is going through.

Am I necessarily happy about these ongoing changes, hell no, but I have accepted or adopted an “it is what it is” type of attitude when it comes to my aging body.

I am constantly reminding my boys that they should “enjoy their bodies” because “they aren’t going to get better as they get older.” Of course they don’t listen to my advice, but I get it, I’m sure I didn’t listen to my dad when he was telling me this exact same stuff when I was a teenager.

But it’s the sad truth, bodies don’t get better. And while I continue to fight this on some level, I have also started to accept certain undeniable truths.

For instance I have hair growing on my back. I’m not happy about this. In fact I’m rather repulsed by this . . . though probably not as much as my wife is . . . and I do try to fight it by occasionally having it professionally waxed off . . . and I imagine that having your back waxed is simply one level above being kicked in the balls . . . but I am beginning to accept the fact that I simply have hair on my back. I didn’t 15 years ago, but I do today. It is what it is.

My mid section is a whole lot bigger than it used to be, and frankly it’s a whole lot harder to shrink it. Yeah 15 to 20 years ago I could eat whatever I wanted to, and still not gain a lot of weight. Nowadays I eat a pizza and I’m three pounds heavier the next morning. And to make matters worse, in order to lose those three pounds I need to run five miles and bang out 100 sit ups. Like so many people my age I am trying to watch what I eat, and I am trying to get more exercise, and yet I am also beginning to accept the fact that I’m simply not going to have the body I had when I was in my early to mid 20’s. It is what it is.

And I’m even willing to acknowledge and maybe even accept . . . maybe . . . that Little Clay just doesn’t work the way he used to. 20 years ago I was a porn star. If I had to describe my sexual prowess with a song title it would have been The Kinks’ All Day and All of the Night, or U2’s Elevation. Today, I’d go with the Rolling Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want, or Tom Petty’s Free Falling. Yes I’ve tried the little blue pill, and it works . . . especially when you take it on an empty stomach and chase it with a couple Excedrin’s and two Nyquil’s . . . another story for another time . . . but for the most part I’m prepared to accept that this too just doesn’t work the way it once did. It is what it is.

However, I am having trouble accepting IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM that I am beginning to bald. I am NOT willing to simply say “it is what it is” when it comes to balding. I can deal with the hair on my back. And I can deal with the larger mid section, and if absolutely necessary I can even deal with the dysfunctions “down there,” but I am NOT ready to deal with OR ACCEPT going bald.

In my opinion balding hits the triple-crown . . . it makes me look old, it makes me look ugly and it makes me look like I’m dying. Balding does not have the charm of sun-beaten wrinkles nor the wisdom and class of gray hair. It doesn’t even have the acceptability of flab. No, balding is like watching a body decompose. If you want to scare someone in a movie you create a villain with hair so thin you can see patches of scalp through it. Do you think Freddie Krueger would have worn that hat if he’d had a luxurious mane underneath it?

Sure some guys can pull it off. Hell some guys can look downright “bad-ass.” Think Kojak and Bruce Willis and Michael Jordan or every UFC fighter. But I am not a bad-ass. I’m more balding accountant or monk.

Worse yet, I’m only balding in one place . . . on the top of my head. Which means I’m not going to be fully bald any time soon, but rather partially bald with hair on the sides and back of my head. That actually could be worse than being fully bald.

I think balding is as close as I will ever come to understanding what it’s like to be a woman and constantly worrying about how I look or how I’m perceived.

Balding is my big butt. My wrong make-up. My butchered bangs. My top that doesn’t match my skirt. My other things that women are always complaining about that I’m not really listening to. But now I too see pictures of myself and I cringe. I look in the mirror now and see my good looks slipping away . . . and my looks weren’t that good to start with . . . so imagine my horror!

The other day I went on line to look up sites for balding. Just to see what’s out there. Hey call it “misery loves company.” As you can probably imagine there are 1,001 sites on how to stop it, cure it, fix it, over-come it, and so on and so on. But I also found one site called “Bald Men Are So Ugly!” This site contains comments like “I would rather have sex with a 500-pound dude or a guy with a tiny wiener.” Or “They do in fact look like pig fetuses.” Of course I don’t think the retorts from some of the bald guys helped. The most creative one I could find . . . and I had to look hard for this one . . . was “You should admire my other bald head.” If that’s the best come-back I can someday hope for . . . I’m in trouble.

Furthermore, despite what some of these websites claim, there appear to be no good solutions to balding. From what I can tell Propecia is about as good as it gets, and yet one of the main side effects is sexual dysfunction . . . which is just as bad as going bald!!!!

You know I sit around and talk about “the good old days” a lot. Probably more than I should since I think sitting around reminiscing about the “good old days” makes you sound a lot older than you really are. But certainly when it comes to my body, and my physical appearance I do find myself thinking back to the “good old days,” and I just wish there was a way to know you’re in the “good old days” before you’ve actually left them.

Because I would have enjoyed having hair on my head instead of my back A LOT MORE had I realized that it was all going to come to an end.