One of my most favorite topics of late has been my hair. Those of you who know me well know how obsessed I am with the curly stuff that is currently coming out of my head, hell, I was obsessed with this glorious stuff when it was the straight stuff coming out of my head. I spend countless hours regailing (my mom mostly) but really anyone who will listen with the fascinating developments of my crowning glory (when I'm not talking about the equally fascinating shenanigans of the always exciting tartar--the amazing yorkie). I am truly having a love affair with my fro (don't tell my husband ;-)
This love fest wasn't always the case though. Let me start from the beginning (cue wavy flashback lines).
The time, some time in the 80's. The place, somewhere in Atlantic City. There was a little girl who lived to follow her brothers around and play "roast beef", "hide the belt" (don't ask), kickball (boy could I whale the ball!), and other diversions that occupied youth's time back then. But while my brothers frolicked outside, where was I? I was in the house, sitting between my mom's legs getting my hair cornrowed. On special occasions I was sitting on the high stool getting my hair pressed by my grandmother or great-grandmother, the marcel iron mavens. I did enjoy the straight hair when I had it, but it was always short-lived because I could sweat out a hard press like nobody's business! My mother had a penchant for putting beads at the ends of my cornrows, it was the style back then, and I had a penchant for shaking my hair in the middle of Illinois avenue ( beads flying everywhere!) I longed to wear my long hair "out" like all the cool girls did, but when i undid my four braids and "whipped my hair back and forth", the whipping gave way to drawing up and my hair became "nappy as the back of a cooter bear's ass" as my mom would say. The combing was murder and frankly, I just didn't like putting my social life on hold to get my hair done. Why couldn't I have that get out of bed and go hair like I saw on tv?
When I got older, I got a relaxer, it was my junior high graduation as a matter of fact. (we will gloss over the jeri curl years--nothing to see here!) I got my usual press and curl, but I wanted the ever popular french roll with the pump in the front and according to the hairdresser, you couldn't get that without a relaxer. I liked, no loved having straight hair though straight hair didn't always love me ( it broke off a couple times). The thing with relaxers is they cost money, so you can put in your own and risk the consequences (see "it broke off a couple times"), or you can pay the money and spend all of your high school/ college CVS/ dining hall wages on the upkeep of your awesome mane, which I did.
Fast forward 10 years. I'm a grown professional independent gal who can afford the weekly hairdresser sessions or before that the bimonthly 2 hour drives to my college hairdresser after graduating I required to keep my do fresh. But I eventually got bored. Two people I know went natural and natural hair looked so good on them, I wanted to do it too. I spent two days immersing myself in natural hair. I looked at blogs over and over and you tube over and over. I got up the nerve to tell my hairdresser to get out the clippers and shave it off! I wanted that cool, breezy, meshell ndegeocello caesar. But womp womp, it was all anticlimactic because she refused to do it. (I only had 2 inches of hair on top, so I just cut it off myself). That was a year ago, and I am here today totally loving my natural, awesome hair. It's like nothing else! And surprisingly, it's not as nappy as I remember it to be...hmmm...
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| sometime around my not so big chop |
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| me at almost 1 year natural |
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