I have recently taken a journey down the road of complete self understanding. And on this journey I must admit I got fascinated by the 'natural hair trend' and a little envious. I wanted to follow suit but for all the wrong reasons. I just liked the look of it. I didn't fully analyze the paradigm. Women everywhere were all of a sudden embracing their roots. (pun city lol) I didn't take it too seriously at first until I thought to myself "WHAT in the world does my natural hair even look like? Why does this have to be a fad? Why isn't it a way of life for us all? Why am I trying to have straight hair?"
These questions begun to plague me. I started to realize that I was conditioned to consider myself less attractive with what I was born with. Ridiculous right? I know. But I just now realized what is really going on.
Now, do not misunderstand me. I will always be changing my hairstyle, it is fun for me and I like to experiment with different looks but at the end of the day I want to have a full understanding of who I am and where I should return to. I vowed to never relax my hair again. It is a very difficult task to return to your natural state especially being 'new' to it. I do not know how to care for/handle my own hair so during the learning process I'll be masking it with extensions (sadly I know how to care for extensions far more than I do my own hair). Wearing extensions is not a display of self dissatisfaction. It never has been and now that is even more factual than before. I LOVE MYSELF! I will happily sport my natural hair as often as I please without the headache of having to use toxic chemicals on my precious scalp. And when I say headache I really mean it. After each relaxer I got a splitting headache as if the chemicals seeped through my flesh. I want to be able to wear my OWN hair in every sense of the word. I want the kinks, I want the fro, I want all the pain that comes with it. If I sport a weave for a couple of months I want to have my afro to return to.
When I made this decision I chose to share it because a part of sticking to a commitment includes telling others. If you tell people, you are sort of bound to doing it. A few of my friends said they would never because their real hair is 'bad' and hard to deal with and they'd look 'unattractive' with their natural hair. That's fine. To each his own. I choose to do it. I find myself attractive even hairless and the only people I want in my life are the people who know that inner beauty is what counts most of all. (That is one way to weed out the seasonal people) We all look unattractive at some point in time. We all get to a state where we don't want to be seen. I don't think wearing my own hair should be cause for seclusion, however. I feel like I must embrace it and make it attractive and wear it with pride. It is how I was born. It is who I am. I am black. I do not have straight, long hair and that is fine. All of us couldn't. I celebrate my difference. I want to prove to myself and others that we can be 100% true to ourselves and rock it!
In the spirit of challenges. I challenge you to wear your natural hair! :)
-cloz <3