Hair
Recently, I saw the above photo of myself in a work video and realized I have a large head. This is not really news, as the Hoskens are indeed known throughout parts of Erie and Monroe counties as a tribe of big-noggin folk. But that moment was a reminder to me of two key things: 1) My melon will continue to swell as I age, and 2) Eventually, that process will also turn my hair gray, fully transforming me into my father. (I’ve known about that second one for quite a while now, actually.)
Both of these things are OK and I have made peace with them. But studying my head in light of this new photographic proof, I began looking closely at what’s on top of it—namely, my hair. I can’t be certain, but it feels like my hairline might be receding. This worries me because as I mentioned above, I’ve long accepted my eventual graying and actually kind of look forward to it (Clooney, Anderson Cooper, et al have prepared me to embrace it), but I’ve made no such mental arrangements for losing it instead. I grew up thinking you either went gray or went bald. Now that I’m 27, the cruel realities of the world that were previously hidden from me are clear. You can go both gray and bald. You can end up like Larry David.
I’m not bald yet, so I shouldn’t worry. In fact, the only reason I’m worrying is because I somehow got it in my brain that my hairline is now at least two inches back from where it was approximately five years ago. OK, you might be saying, why don’t you compare your hairline now to photos of you from 2012? Well, smart guy, I tried that, but five years ago (and for several years before that), I opted for what used to be called The Bieber, with long bangs swooping across my forehead. Even when I got my own version of Jim Halpert’s Big Haircut right before graduating college, I still kept the bangs. For comfort, you understand. It’s risky business to bear your nude forehead for the world to see.
As a teen working at a Tim Hortons in Rochester, I had to wear a hair net as I served breakfast foods and beverages to old people who asked to receive the senior discount on a $1.45 coffee. One night after I punched out and removed my long hair from its netted prison, a coworker asked me to push it out of my face so she could see what my forehead looked like. I reluctantly did, and she immediately told me I had a receding hairline. She even asked for a second pair of eyes from another coworker, who agreed. I was 17. I take this now to mean that I probably just have always had a farther-back hairline compared to most dudes, that’s all.
At least, that’s the story I told myself until I rediscovered my seventh grade school portrait. In 2002, it was extremely cool to put gel in your hair, comb up your bangs into a series of small spikes, then comb the hair on top of your head forward so it looked like a series of irrigation ditches. I did that every day, using way too much gel in the process. The aforementioned school photo confirms that at age 12, my hairline was, in fact, quite even with my profile, leading me to a somewhat troubling question: Did my excessive cheap gel use damage my follicles irreparably and make my hairline recede as early as age 17 (and potentially even before)? I wouldn’t have known this at the time, you see, because as I mentioned, I had long bangs for most of my teen years and grew out of the gel phase after 13 or so.
This was a hard potential conclusion to arrive at, so I took solace and small amusement in the fact that my current hairstyle (pictured at the top of this post) is effectively the adult version of my middle-school gelling. Now, I use forming cream because I’m a man and because a barber told me it was good about two years ago. We all eventually circle back to where we came from.
What’s less amusing, though, is that I recently saw a photo of my sworn college enemy—whose name I will withhold here because 1) He doesn’t know I consider him my enemy, and 2) He is tied into an influential regional grocery magnate, or at least has the same name, and I’ve always been paranoid about a potential connection—and he, too, has the popular adult male hairstyle I’ve chosen to wear. Like, it’s the exact same as mine, parted the same direction and everything. Brown too. He’s handsome, and he physically resembles Henry Francis from Mad Men. I look way more like Harry Crane than I’d like to admit. (Harry has a big head, too, come to think of it.)
But after all is said and done, all I’m asking is to end up a Roger Sterling, not a late-in-the-game Pete Campbell. Is that too much to ask, universe? I just want to make the Hoskens proud.
