It’s Never Just Hair

We’re already four months into 2019 and it still feels like January was yesterday. I haven’t been writing for a while simply because life got me for a second but then I was like: Hey!!!…Wait a minute, I’m here to live.. And here I am..Back to regular shenanigans.

As you know, I’ve been wearing my hair natural for about four years now. It’s been an amazing journey and I’m sure that it’ll keep surprising me in the future. And since the creation of the blog, I really, really wanted to talk about my hair and natural hair in general but I wasn’t sure about what to write or what to focus on because this subject is so vast y’all. Those who know would understand. You can start a hair conversation right now and the next thing you know, three hours have gone by and you still have things to say. I figured out a way to talk about it. I thought… Why not tell my hair story? Right?

So, I know for sure that the first eleven years of my life, my mom made sure to keep my hair natural. I did not get my hair brushed or relaxed. She just washed it, detangled it and she’d either braid it or make bantu knots. I guess I don’t even have to mention about the hair pulling, me crying that I’m in pain and those who know, would understand because you were not even allowed to complain. You cry and you’d end up collecting strokes of cane afterwards. This sounds funny but at that time, believe me it wasn’t.

Let me ask you a question real quick! Do you have a hairstyle you hated back to the time when your mom was the one who did your hair? I know you feel me. For me it was the bantu knots but the one I hated the most was when my mom would braid the front part, and that was still fine. I would hate it most when she would separate the back into two parts, tie each part then, make a two strand twist and tuck it inside. I always felt like I had elephant ears on the top of my head. I hated that. However, I must say that it was fun when I got to wear my barrettes and beads. Do you remember these?

I relaxed my hair for the first time in 2006 and I was twelve years old. I must say that it was my own choice though. When I went to high school my hair wasn’t straight and to be honest, it was bothering me until the day a random girl came to me and told me that my hair looked ugly and that I should relax it. I wasn’t even offended, I was sad. So, I went to my mom and asked her if I could get my hair relaxed for Easter and she asked me if I was sure of that and I said yes, and that was it. It was then clear that I was growing up in a world where apparently, the straighter your hair is, the more you’d look beautiful. There was a moment where I even thought my hair had to be straight for me to look beautiful. Every time my hair started curling, I started feeling some type of way about it.

For years, I went to the hair salon to get my hair done, sat there waiting with this white cream on my scalp. Believe me, it’s hot and it burns. I’m still trying to understand why I went through this process. This relaxer would be left on my head for too long sometimes because they said, the longer you can wait, the straighter your hair would be. But man… The pain you had to go through, it wasn’t even worth it. I had burns, bald spots and sometimes my hair was so damaged that it started breaking off.

Then, I turned twenty and my hair started falling off for no specific reason. It kept breaking and at some points it wasn’t even shedding, my hair was literally coming off every time I would run my hand through it. So I went to get a haircut and tried to get it as short as I believed would look fine on me. And one day, I was on the phone with my sister and out of nowhere she said ” I don’t to relax my hair anymore, I want to see what my natural hair looks like” and that was it.

I realize now that I was limiting myself to so many things when I had straight hair. Because my hair was relaxed, I couldn’t swim when we I went to the beach, I couldn’t exercise, let alone sweat. I was scared of the rain and it was my worse enemy. when I wore my hair straight it was just a hot mess. You know when you’re swimming? And you know when you lift up your head and you hope your hair would move along with? The type of move girls do in those ads for whatever hair product?…Maaaaannnn!!! Hope was such a big word it that case because my hair would stick out straight like birds’ tails (smh).

However, wearing your hair natural is fun and games until someone out of nowhere would say something negative about it. And this hurts especially when you have just started to claim back your identity. One day I went to the hair salon, I had to meet my mom, and when I came in, there was a random lady who was talking to my mom and she told her that she hates people with Afro hair, and she didn’t know that she was talking to my mom, I came in talked to my mom for a bit and then I saw the same lady sitting in front of the mirror ready to get her hair fried. And I was like, thank God I don’t have to do this anymore. And I also got comments like I should go and comb my hair or I look ugly without straight hair. But guess what fam? I enjoy being ugly.

See, everybody’s hair is different, some have looser curl patterns and others have more coily hair. And very often you would hear talks about the “Good Hair”. Again this thing now of having straight hair or whatever people might consider ‘good hair’. But then, really people… What is good hair? I wonder! It’s your hair; it grows out of your scalp naturally, how can YOUR hair not be GOOD HAIR?

Today, my hair is not just hair. It is a huge part of my identity. My hair is me expressing myself. I can switch hairstyles depending on my mood. My hair has its own personality, its ups and downs. I think of my hair as if it was a human being. To me, my hair is: sexy, bold, edgy, artistic, feminine, beautiful, unique, pushy, amazing, authentic,kinky, complex, nappy, spectacular, unashamed and most importantly it’s free.

Oh and one last thing, don’t touch my hair without permission. It’s rude. Remember someone’s hair is just like any other part of his or her body. If you touch my hair without permission it would be like you came at me and touched my boobs and be like “I’m sorry I just wanted to touch it”. Do yourself a favor, ask first.

On this note,

Besos xx