Last year, the night before my 41^st birthday, I decided to do the big chop.  There in the stillness of my bathroom, I took my husband's clippers and with a #2 guard, I shaved off my hair.  All but a tuft a hair in the front so I could attach my quick weave and look fabulous for my party. I had been so stressed out the previous year that my hair was shedding like crazy.  Our finances were getting tight and I guess my ability to apply relaxer without overlapping had dwindled a bit so there was also breakage. I lit some Nag Champa, played India Arie’s “Beautiful” and made a little ceremony of it.  I released all the old anguish, disappointments, ill will and regrets.  As black cotton balled puffs fell silently on the floor, my emotional load seemed lighter.  I looked past the alfalfa-esque sprouts and admired the new me.

 

 It has grown quite a bit since then and it is certainly much healthier, but I find myself in a strange place.  After all my proclamations about loving these feisty kinky spirals on top of my head, I am not comfortable in my natural- hair skin.  I sometimes feel self-conscious when I rock my thick sculpted fro’ in public.  My husband’s aversion to my “new do” doesn’t help.  I find myself battling with the urge to reach for the Olive relaxer kit and get my Iman supermodel look back.  I reason with myself by saying, “it’s just hair and you can cut it off and start over again.” A mantra I’ve often sung over the years.  This time though, something just won’t let that small voice nagging at me win. 

I often go to YouTube and look at several natural hair videos for that extra incentive and to reaffirm my reasons for going this route in the first place. You may be asking, “What was the catalyst?”  It was a video suggesting that black women only felt beautiful when they conformed to the European ideology about beauty and that any man with these weave wearin’ relaxed haired vixens had issues with his identity as well.  Naturally, (pun intended,) I strongly disagreed.  I mean what does my hairstyle have to do with how I feel about the skin I’m in?  I’ve yet to meet a woman of any race, nationality or ethnicity that hasn’t got a complaint about their hair, among other things, but I wondered if I could actually look at myself and see in me, what I saw in others. 

 I have often admired the tresses of my Au natural sisters.  I take great pride in my husband’s locks and feel pleased when they are admired. And I love being a strong beautiful cocoa colored woman.  I’ve come to a conclusion; I just hate “MY” hair.  Not my skin or the African origin that enables my springs to retract.  I suppose if I looked beyond the surface it may also have to do with coming to terms with my water- colored childhood and embracing the “little girl” I’ve been ignoring for quite sometime.  Whatever the reasons may be, I’ve decided I’m not giving up on the Afro-centric image reflecting back at me just yet.