I Am Not My Hair

This particular blog entry is difficult for me to write because I have so many hang-ups and whatnot when it comes to my hair. Since I could remember, I have had issues with my hair and just recently, I decided to just let it go and do what I feel is best for my overall well being when it comes to my strands. Here is my story:

As a child, I was told I had good hair. Whatever that means. It was a nice length, fine, and wavy. My mother usually put my hair in braids or ponytails and I wasn't allowed to wear my hair down until I was like 13. Yes, I am serious. At that age, I began going to get my hair done at the salon and I would get it pressed. My mother would not allow me to get a perm for fear it would mess up my "good" hair. When I was 15, my mother finally relented and I got a relaxer and there began my love/hate relationships with chemical straighteners.

When I was 16, with the popularity of Toni Braxton and Halle Berry and Anita Baker tapered short cuts and styles, I chopped all of my hair off to conform. At first, I loved it but then I realized that keeping the style meant I had to get my hair done every week and I had to get it cut quite often. Bored with the style after 6 months or so, I let my beautician put in a sew in weave. I loved the instant length it afforded and I began wearing a weave pretty much all of the time.

Now anyone who remembers the early nineties remember that weaves were somewhat controversial. Now weaves are considered very mainstream and as a fashion accessory but back then, it was a travesty if people knew you had a weave. I moved around a lot and when I started my Junior and Senior year at high school, everyone saw me with the long hair and thought it was mine. I began living the lie of having long hair when I really didn't and this created tension because I didn't feel comfortable wear my own hair.

Wearing a weave became a crutch that I would have pretty much throughout my adult life. I wouldn't allow my own hair to breathe because I felt I needed to keep up the persona of having long hair. My beautician was so good at putting in the weave that no one was the wiser believe it or not and there were few people that knew I wasn't wearing my own hair.

This all came to a head when I got into a fight at school. The first thing the girl did was pull on my hair as girls often do when fighting and the weave track came out of the top of my head. She was carrying it in her hand and the crowd watching it was shocked to see that it was a weave. It was hard for me to show my face the next day at school but my mom and dad made me go to school. (I lost the fight by the way).

After that tragic incident at school, I started wearing my own hair. And that lasted for awhile. By then it had grown to a nice length but was very damaged after relaxing it myself when I took out the weave. So I began to experiment with pieces. Falls and ponytails and things like that to cover up the unhealthiness of the hair. I began college with braids and wore them during the mid to late 90's.

During the pregnancy of my son, my hair grew very long and strong but I had another brush with scissors and cut it all off again into a short bob that was the rage then. Of course I got bored with the length and I began wearing full headed weaves again.

It was a vicious cycle that I perpetrated.

Fast forward to now and I am still wearing weaves. But I don't wear them all the time. I give my hair a resting period and wear my own hair from time-to-time. I have had a relaxer constantly for too many years and decided in October, after having a heat-to-heart with my stylist to go natural.

There is nothing wrong with straight hair. Or chemically relaxing your hair. Or wearing weaves. But I think that the combination of all of the those things is displaying to others that I can only be beautiful with these "crutches" and that is not true. For starters, my beauty doesn't come from my outside but from my inside. Number two, the hair in a relaxed state and bought in a store is not truly mine. I am not being myself if I cannot wear my hair in its natural state.

I love looking at sisters who are rocking twists or locks, or an Afro, or curls or whatever hair style they chose that is natural. It's a statement. It's funky. And it's being true to oneself. Not that wearing a weave or having relaxers mean you can't be true, but using it for a crutch, which was my experience, it can seem like you are being your hair. And I am not my hair. India.Arie had it right when she sang that song:

I have been researching ways to transition my hair to natural. Right now I am wearing a sew in weave in order to transition in. I am also going to try rocking braids and some curly do's. I know there is going to come a time where I am going to have to cut the relaxed ends off and that will be the day I am borne again as a woman. A natural one, napps, waves, curls, and all.

I will still straighten my hair. My current stylist specializes in natural hair and said that in its natural state, my wavy and fine hair would be easy to train and straighten with a flat iron without chemicals. Right now, being totally chemically free is my goal and I cannot wait to achieve it. It will give me so much flexibility to wear it curly, wavy, or straight and I will have so many more options when it comes to my hair.

If you have any suggestions on how I can transition my hair, please reply to this post. I would be most grateful and thankful. Taking this new journey is going to be long and I am sure I will have some stumbling blocks along the way. But this is a new phase, a new direction in which I would like to follow. I need to do this for myself.