H is for HAIR!

Welcome to the letter H!

I actually didn't know what I could write about until I read JuliPage Morgan's entry for the day. She had the same struggle I have had since I was a kid and that is unruly kinky hair. Thank goodness I have no pictures available! lol

For some reason, this is actually a big deal in the black community. Some people forgo BILLS to pay for a weave or a relaxer, and I say, "Really, though?" I'd rather go nappy. lol But anyway, I think my little avatar up there was a year before I did "the big chop," but let's start at the beginning.

My mom never learned how to do hair. The best she could do was braid it up and send us on our way. We were often the kids whose hair was a little too tight, so our eyes would be slightly more slanted than usual. Halfway through the day, my two parallel French braids often came undone. Also, growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood, I often envied my friends, who had long hair they could put up in ponytails or have it fly around in the wind like in the Pert Plus commercials.

In the 3rd grade, my mom decided to give up her "struggle" and sent us somewhere (I can't remember) to get Wave Noveaus. Also known as jheri curls. Now, to be fair, in PA, it didn't look like a jheri curl. My sister and I just had nice, fluffy, curly afros. I have no idea what happened when we moved to Delaware, but if my hair didn't look like I stepped out of an Ashford and Simpson's video, it looked like I'd come through the desert with no activator! So through the 4th grade, I was teased for having an afro (which, ironically has been ALL the rage from the time I got to high school til now!) among other things.

Right at the end of the 4th grade, bless my mother, she sent us to a professional who relaxed our hair, so I was no longer teased for at least the afro.

But here's the problem with my hair. Like Juli's it's really curly and thick in its natural state, but the moment  a chemical touches it, it's like thread, and my head is big. So, I'd be walking around with easily breakable, limp hair that for the next 20 years I would wear in a bob. I did get a pixie cut my sophomore year, so everyone called me Halle Berry (why thank you), and I had braids a few times (I was popular in Mexico lol).

Today, though, after I got tired of the life of don't-scratch-or-you'll-burn-to-death and "We have to cut off all the damage," I decided to go completely natural, which means without a relaxer to kill the curls from my hair. At the moment, I have what black people call a TWA: teeny-weeny afro, but I hope to have a slightly big one in a few years. I've come to enjoy my curly hair, as I wanted curly curly hair probably since about 14. Some days I do throw on a wig for the pixie cut I miss, and some days I want to give up and get it relaxed again, but in the end, I know it will be worth it!