My dysfunctional relationship with hair
There comes a time in every person's life when a certain decision turns the path of her life. Mine came when I was 10 or 11, at least as far as my hair is concerned. One dark evening in the middle of the chaos of life in a Congolese town, I made my mother cut my hair with the pretty braids she had done for me still intact. Now that I think about it, I wonder why she went along with it. She must have really believed that my teacher would not let me back in class if I went back the next day with my long hair. That is what I heard, anyway. Nothing was going to stand in the way of my schooling. It turns out, the teacher had asked us to cut our hair if we were unable to keep it clean and neat. I learned the importance of paying attention to every part of every sentence that day.
Ever since then, my hair and I do not get along very often. I did not have hair at all until I was 16. Mama wanted me to grow it so badly, but it was too late. I did not like the way my scalp felt whenever she pulled my hair left and right trying to braid. Consequently, I had developed a technique for sneaking out to the barbershop and coming back to her shocked face with a look like the one below, minus the makeup.
My hair started to reappear when my family moved to the US and I started attending high school. American teenage girls were having none of my baldness. So, I let it grow and even permed it for the few months it took me to learn English and re-grow my backbone's strength enough to stand up to them. I eventually started to like the idea of loving the feel of hair on my head but not enough to do much about it. I stopped perming only a year and 1/2 into it and embraced the natural look before it was a thing. The high school teens were far behind me by then, as I navigated the freedom of college life. Natural felt good bully-less.
Feeling good and looking "good" can be two different things, though, especially for people like me who have never cashed in the style/fashion/hair care sense God gave us when He created us. The natural look has become the style for a lot of black women all everywhere over the past decade or so. For me, it was never part of a fashion statement or a desire to inspire other women to be their truest selves. It was just a way for me to be me while spending as little effort on my hair as possible.
Anyone who knows me knows my hair is just there 90% of the time. I get around to getting it done two or three times a year. I once got into the habit of going to a hair salon for care, but that became too time consuming for my liking. I always feel so proud of myself for doing the very least to/for my hair. I twisted it today for the first time in years, in the kind of twists that you cover before bed and hope for a good twistout when the sun rises. It is as funny-looking as you are imagining. Even my 9 month old laughed at (with?) me.
Yet, I am sitting here wondering what kind of awards are out there for taking care of one's own hair. I should get one for today's effort, but I will settle for fully holding on to the idea that I am not my hair. This idea has become so embedded in me that I feel zero guilt most times when I walk out of the house with an untouched fro. My people have shown me that those who really matter will look deeper to find the me they need to know. They are probably - at least partially - to blame for keeping this dysfunction going.
