Something New

I, like many women of color, have spent my entire adult life at war with my hair. I have used chemicals to relax it and hot metal plates to straighten it. I have stripped it with bleach and had it pulled so tight that I could hardly see. My hair has been slathered with product and chopped off on a whim. My hair has never complained. I have never had any real damage beyond split ends. I joke that you could probably set my hair of fire and when it was over it would still just be sitting there. It’s tough. I guess it had to be. While it was clear that my hair could very well continue to take all the abuse, I realized that my head and my heart could not.

I was born with a full head of hair. It was so bad that my mother had to sleep in a completely upright position. (Hairy fetus = Heartburn…and yes, payback does suck.) I grew up around girls with “perms”, but my mother would not let me straighten my hair. No cycle, no perm. So I waited. I was not really sure why I wanted straight hair other than I wanted to wear my hair in a ponytail and not cry when I saw my mother coming with the barrette box. I just believed that straight hair would be easier.

I was so wrong. That became crystal clear to me last year when the off and on soreness in the top of my head that I had been ignoring for the past 2 years was not going and getting progressively worse. It hurt to even touch my hair. I mean, it hurt for me to put my index finger on top of my hair or to even lift up a piece of my hair. Some of you may be familiar with this phenomenon. It can sometimes happen to people who part their hair a certain way for a long time and then change it. It happens to a lot of my friends when they need a “touch-up”. The soreness is an indicator that you need to get your hair done. Well, I was tired of my head hurting every other week. My hair had previously been nothing, but nice to me and it was time I did something nice to return the favor. I decided that week to ditch the relaxer all together.

This was not my best thought out plan. I, in fact, did not think about it at all before making the decision because my head hurt too badly to think. After about 2 months of not getting a relaxer the pain stopped and has not been back. That was almost a year ago and has just occurred to me last week that I still have no idea what I am going to do with my hair. I have been washing, blow drying and flat ironing my hair straight, but that is getting old and it hurts. All the yanking and pulling and arm strength is just more than I want to do. I now stare at my hair dryer the way I used to look at that barrette box – with utter disdain. So I decided to quit straightening it all together.

I, of course, have some concerns. I haven’t really seen my natural curls in almost 20 years. I work in an office job. Most importantly, I have no idea what I am doing. I don’t know what most of the products in the natural hair aisle do or how to use them. I feel like a little kid who keeps asking, “What does this button do?” I just keep asking, “What is that for?” “Do I need that?” “What am I supposed to do with that?” It is like information overload. “Is my hair curly, kinky, nappy, mixed…wait NAPPY?!?” They can’t be serious!

My mother is my biggest concern. She is fairly conservative and has no problem telling me she doesn’t like something. She reminds me of the mother in the movie “Something New” with Sanaa Lathan. She wants me to be a certain way and while I know she will always come around to support me, it is never easy. The thing about this is that I don’t care. I feel like Sanaa in that movie. I am just starting to feel the freedom that comes with accepting oneself as is. Maybe this was the revelation moment I was hoping to feel on my big 30^TH birthday. It is a little late, but well worth it. I am excited to try SOMETHING NEW!