I recently went to my Primary Care Provider for my annual check-up. My doctor is a laid-back blonde woman with long limbs that she always crosses in front of her. She is about my age, so I consider her a young woman. But I recognize that I need to accept that perhaps I am not young anymore? When did I become 40?

When she asked me if I had any concerns, I told her about my hair loss. Over the past few years I’ve lost about half my hair. Now I know I shouldn’t be fussing about that. I still have what one might consider to be thick hair. However, my entire life up until this point, hairdressers would grab my rope-like tresses and marvel that I was able to stand up under all that weight. I had insanely thick, smooth hair. I couldn’t fit a hairband around my hair more than twice, and even that required me to stretch the band to the point of breaking. So now when I put my hair up and I make a tiny bun that requires only one band wrapped four times, I am horrified. Am I experiencing Perimenopause already?

When I shower I pull out 20-30 hairs and stick them to the wall so they don’t go down the drain. Later I’ll use a tissue to grab them and throw them away so as not to disgust my boyfriend who is bald and has to share a shower with a long-haired woman. But as those hairs are sticking to the wall 10 inches from my face I consider them. Some of them look crunchy and grey, I can understand why they couldn’t hang on any more. Others look strong and straight and I wonder whey they chose to abandon my head. I feel betrayed. Did I not take good care of them? Did I not always consider their needs?

I wash my hair twice a week. I put castor oil in it. I use the fancy Pantene ProV shampoo. A friend of mine from Afghanistan gifted me some rose oil that I rub into it from time to time. I never blow dry it or use heat to curl it or straighten it. I sleep in curlers with a satin cap to protect it. I think I give it a pretty good life. And yet, it has changed over the years into an entity I no longer recognize. It’s dry and brittle and constantly frizzy.

My doctor says I’m too young for it to be due to my age. She says I must be stressed. I tell her “I don’t feel stressed”. But then she asks me what my life has been like the past few years. She points out that obviously we’ve all endured the COVID pandemic and Trump presidency. That alone could be enough to throw a democrat terrified of getting sick into a panic. Just because it’s something we all endured and no one close to me suffered greatly with the illness, doesn’t mean it wasn’t acutely stressful. So there’s that.

“Well, ok” I say. “I did welcome a foster daughter, deal with her crappy social service providers, walk away from the successful small-business I had helped build from the ground up, start a new job with no training, run a community center for refugees that have intensely upsetting issues, find out my husband is gay, decide to get divorced, start dating for the first time in my adult life, support my gay ex while he mourns the suicide of his brother, leave my job for a job that paid more, train my replacement while learning a new job, fail at that, try another job, fail at that, start a new job in an entirely new field, end several dating relationships, meet “the one”, move out and support my kids as they adjust to the divorce”….

She looked at me like I’m crazy. Which of course I am.

I don’t feel stressed, maybe because I’m on Lexapro. A life-saving medication I began taking when I could no longer safely drive to work because I was having black-out panic attacks on the road. I genuinely don’t think I could have made it through the past two years without it. Also, I had a therapist (just recently “lost” her because I lost my health insurance…thanks divorce), that reminded me that I’m actually handling everything fairly well considering. I’m part of a support group that is comprised of thousands of individuals whose spouses came out of the closet later in life. I rely on them daily to help me navigate my new normal. I have a best friend that I literally send sobbing, incoherent messages to through the Marco Polo app on a regular basis. And of course, I have the love of my life that soothes me and loves me better than anyone ever has.

If I have any complaints, it’s that I’m almost too emotionally bolstered to genuinely comprehend how much of a shit show my life has been the past few years. I explained to my therapist that I sometimes can’t sense when I’m experiencing depression anymore. My emotional benchmarks are less discernible. I have to rely on the physical manifestations. I’m not sad, I’m just exhausted. I’m fulfilled and grateful, but I can’t get out of bed. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, but I have no motivation. Could my hair be trying to tell me I’m stressed because my heart isn’t listening?

I asked my hairdresser what she thinks. She said maybe I have “COVID” hair. It’s a thing apparently. I have had COVID twice and supposedly a long-term side-effect is brittle hair. Ah COVID, the gift that keeps on giving. For now, I have no solutions. I’ll keep babying my hair. Keep trying to sit with my feelings. Keep trying to process WTF has happened the past few years.