Part 34: Living La Vida Baldo

We just passed the two-year anniversary of this blog. And with 100% certainty, I can tell you: I never thought I’d still be writing here in 2025.

When I first sat down that dark, stormy night in 2023*, I figured this blog would be a quick little project. I’d share some clever tips for coiffing thinning hair to “look normal,” toss in a few peppy “chin up, you got this!” posts. Maybe tell a couple of laughable stories about trying not to get caught bald in public, toss out some product recs and—voilà—everything would feel better for anyone dealing with extreme hair loss. 🙌🏼

(Holy hell, that sounds like a terrible blog. Glad I didn’t write it.)

all the feels

Instead, it turned into something much less Pinterest-perfect—and way more real. It became something more raw. More honest. Definitely more curse words than originally planned. It was sharing the two years of gut punches, bathroom-mirror standoffs, and life lessons I never signed up for. Two years of allowing the world to watch my ego take hit after hit, of seeing a stranger in the mirror and not quite recognizing her.

And somewhere in there, between the posts about losing every single hair on my body, I kind-of-sort-of actually found myself.

So What The "F" Did I Actually Do These Past Two Years?

Losing my hair forced me to take a hard look at who I was. I let go of the pressure to conform that I’d nurtured for three decades climbing the corporate ladder. Heck, I think the first full year was spent deprogramming myself from the "exhausting lie of normal"—ditching the corporate-speak, the carefully curated wardrobe, the constant worry about how I was perceived.

The liberation of bringing your 'whole crazy' to the table and having people still like you for it was addictive, not gonna lie. Over these two years, you’ve shown me that the closer to the edge I write, the more you connect.

And that connection? It made me brave…

Since the start of this blog, I bravely:

• Left my C-suite roles in corporate America and built my own gig enterprise. 🏙️

• Surprisingly, landed a couple of incredible clients pretty quickly, solved some big messy problems, and remembered why I actually love my work. 💚

• Picked up on-field freelance work with NFL and college football broadcasts, because…why not? 🏈

• Dove into teaching entrepreneurship at the college level. 🚌

• Most importantly (to me at least), I kept writing. I kept sharing. I kept putting myself out there. ✏️

As you can see, my life, just like this blog, became unstructured, unpolished, and possibly a little bit unraveled.

So What's Next?

No clue—which is equal parts thrilling and “oh crap.”

Just this week, I was approved to start a new biologic called Litfulo that might grow my hair back. Does it work? Who knows. Will I actually take it?  No clue.  The side effects are nothing to joke about, but trying new things is my specialty at this point.

So yes, newsflash, I’m still bald.

Okay, so for real, what's next. Will my hair come back this year? Doubt it. Will I keep curse words as an active part of my vocabulary? F*^K YEAH. Will I keep making people think a little, but laugh even more in this blog? I sure hope so.  (And maybe one of you out there will feel a little braver about dropping their own filters and reclaiming some of your life back.)

Will I end up working too hard again? Probably. Will I end up as a reporter on the NFL sidelines? Probably not.  All I know for sure is that I’m totally reinvigorated on my consulting work - its still my jam.  (And yes, I’m on the lookout for the next big, messy, interesting challenge to dive into. If you’ve got one, call me. ☎️ Seriously. It’ll take me 3 seconds to throw on a wig.)

So what's next is that I'm putting Years 1 and 2 of this hairloss bullskit in the rearview mirror. I feel like I'm done thinking about being bald for a while.

And In Conclusion...

🍾 For all my bald, bald-adjacent, and fully haired friends (so yes, everyone), a toast:

Here's to purging bland from our lives....

To being kind when we look in the mirror...

To saying things exactly as we mean them...

To saying "yes" to the unexpected...

And to living a little more unpolished, unfiltered, and unapologetically ourselves.

🥂 And here is to Year 3 of this blog:  To Living La Vida Baldo. 🥂

Year three, let’s go.

Much love,  

Kristina 💖  

kristina@unexpectedlybald.com

*So weird, it's a dark stormy night right now as I write this...

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p.s. Will someone please remind me to go update the main page of this blog? It reeks of unfulfilled promises and shattered dreams, and is clearly lacking some curse words.