Raindrops Keep Falling on My Bald Head

Inspiration, Humor, Perspective on Alopecia, Beauty, and Self Image

“Rain drops are falling on my head
and just like the guy (or gal) whose feet are too big for the bed
nothing seems to fit,
those raindrops are falling on my head, they keep falling.
So I did me some talking to the sun,
said I didn’t like the way he got things done,
sleeping on the job, those raindrops are falling on my head
they keep falling.
But there’s one thing I know
the blues they sent to meet me, won’t defeat me
It won’t be long until happiness steps up to greet me.”

Lyrics to a popular 1970s song by B.J. Thomas, part of the sound track for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid movie, a favorite of my father who often wore a hat like the Sundance Kid, rang through my ears as I biked in unexpected rainfall. I used to get so uptight about my washed and styled hair getting wet, now I shrug off the rain from a shiny, bald head due to alopecia. “What do I have to worry about?” I ponder biking on emptying bike trails, “I have my health, just not my hair.”

When you lose your perceived commercial beauty to alopecia, an autoimmune disease that effects over 6 million people, you eventually turn to discovering other parts of yourself as beautiful. For me it’s my undying sense of humor to look at life they way my dad did with a smile on his face and a happy tune on his lips when times were bad. You couldn’t bring the man down no matter what he faced until a stroke got him when he was 66 years old.

I adapted his sense of humor and sunny outlook into my life as I missed him. I can only imagine what he would have said to me to make me laugh after seeing his oldest daughter at the age of 56 without any hair. He’d make a simple joke, giggle a little, give me a hug, tell me he loved me, kiss my bald head, and mostly hum the lyrics to this song in my ears as he took me into his arms for a quick dance.

Life doesn’t have to be as serious as it appears if we have a way to see what has been handed to us differently. I’ve had a lot of loss in my life and losing my hair was just another one. Over the years I’ve learned to accept the fact unexpected bad things happen to good people and to give yourself time to look at what happened positively or negatively.

“Raindrops keep falling on my head” reminds me to bike on, shine on, and live on no matter how rough it gets. Ode to my own ‘Sundance Kid’ – my dad – for teaching me that lesson.