In a few days, I will be a bald woman.

Not by choice, but by necessity. I have been slowly losing my hair for a couple of decades. So now, days away from “the shave,” I feel mostly ready (whatever that means) and a little giddy at the idea of being free from the consistent angst of losing hair.

Yet as much as I have prepared for what is, for me, a big change in appearance—like New York Times journalist Elizabeth Egan, who wrote “Lessons, Big and Small, From Growing Out My Gray”—I have my worries.

I worry about people thinking I have cancer and navigating the pity in their eyes. I worry about my boyfriend’s adorable 3-year-old daughter being confused or scared of me. I worry that my boyfriend will no longer find me attractive. I worry about having to explain to people why I am a bald woman so often that I may feel compelled to just work it into introductions, “Hi, I’m Amber. I am bald because I have alopecia, which is just a fancy word for baldness. What’s your name?” I worry about the descriptors people use for me going from “Amber with the funky haircut” to “bald-headed Amber.” I worry that I won’t feel feminine or beautiful.

My biggest worry? That people will stop hiring me.  

As my appearance deviates from what people consider to be “normal,” I wonder if doing my fairly visible and already challenging job will become harder because of how people will receive my new appearance. We already know that “lookism” impacts women at work no matter how they present themselves. And an older German study found that bald job candidates are twice as likely to be rejected.

My concerns are not without merit. Over the past couple of months as I have shared with........

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