Christine Gentry - The Real Me

 

So, it's one of those first dates where you catch yourself getting way too excited, because things are going way too well. [chuckles] Supposed to be just drinks that turn into dinner, more drinks. And then, we were back at his place in Inwood in New York City, and we were just talking, talking, talking. And as it often does on first dates, the conversation snaked around to our previous experiences on the app that we had met on. He starts laughing and says, “Oh, man, the last girl that I met on there, she seemed great.” But then when went back to her house and get this, she was bald. Like, something about her immune system. I don't know, she had a wig. She took it off in front of me. How crazy is that? I was so weirded out. 

 

And what this man did not know, is that he was sitting across from someone who had the exact same condition, the odds of which I cannot even begin to imagine. [audience laughter] My immune system attacked every hair follicle on my body when I was 3 years old, and then again when I was 8 and then again when I was 14. I'd been wearing wigs since high school. But it was something very few people knew, because I kept it locked, quarantined, behind this thick door inside of me. And at that moment, it felt like I was floating above us, looking down at this conversation. I thought the bravery of the woman before me and I thought about how fucking stupid he was going to feel if I did it. [audience laughter] 

 

But I'm embarrassed to tell you, I chickened out. I said, “You know what? It's late. I have to work tomorrow.” Grabbed my stuff and left. I just sobbed that whole subway ride home, because not six months before, I had finally escaped this horribly abusive relationship and I had gone into therapy to figure out how did I get into this relationship, how is it that I stayed for so long? We'd figured out that it was because I had let that man in that space. I had let him see me at my most exposed, my most vulnerable, and what I thought was my most ugly, and he had loved me anyway. 

 

He had turned that love against me. He would do things like snatch my hair off during fights, because he knew that it would just break me. I left that relationship with these two very deep fears. The first was that if anyone ever got into that space again, they would hurt me. And the second was that no one would ever love me for who I really am anyway. And that night on the train, I was like, “This is proof. What just happened to me is proof that I'm right.” I resolved to make this my deepest, darkest secret. 

 

When he emailed me the next day and asked to see me again, I said no. I went on to date several people. I would date people for months, and they would never know, because I got really good at redirecting hands, and I got really good at sneaking out of beds to fix my eyebrows or my eyelashes while they were asleep and I would ruin $3,000 wigs by sleeping in them night after night after night, because I felt so ugly without them. And if anyone ever found out, I would just bounce before they got a chance to leave me. 

 

And then last month, you guys, last month, Ayanna Pressley,- [audience cheers and applause] -the congresswoman whose district we're in right now, she did something so incredible. She posted a video where she revealed that she'd been wearing wigs because of the same condition. And it was so brave and it was so beautiful. And the next night, I sat across from this man I had been dating less than a month, and the street lamp was coming through the blinds and the room glowed this beautiful bluish purple. I took everything off and I asked him to see me. Like, all of me, the real me. I knew that it was for me and that it was something I needed to do, no matter how he responded. He kissed my head and he told me I was beautiful. And this time, I believed it. Thank you.