Hair today, hope tomorrow

The Beginning

I wasn’t born with hair. It was more like a scalp of five o’clock shadow. As a kid I had a little more luck. I do mean little. My hair wasn’t long and flowing. It was just enough to form into little puffs with hundreds of barrettes. Now that I think about it, I wonder if these barrettes were for fashion or a parental declaration to strangers that I wasn’t a boy. There’s picture evidence that these hair sprouts eventually matured. But as with anything being treated by products promising overall greatness, the results were short-lived.

Hot combs to the rescue (read as demise)! I’m not even sure why this is an option at all. I love my grandmother with all my heart, but for the life of me I can’t understand why I was sent to her to get my hair pressed. Pressed? A thick metal comb was placed on the stovetop and heated fifteen degrees past Hell. This was done all in the name to get my hair straight.

The Middle

Fast-forward to third grade. I get my first perm (or chemical relaxer). Pressing obviously didn’t do enough damage. So now we resorted to chemicals. Sadly, for nearly the next sixteen years my hair started to build up a resistance. I went from one brand to another. “Switching products every now and then is necessary for the hair.” Yeah, sure it is. That’s exactly why my hair fought valiantly like it was fighting a virus.

The End

Many braids, weaves, extensions, and cuts later, I quit. I have actively decided to give up. I know when I have lost. In anger and frustration, I recently stopped getting relaxers in my hair. Braids hurt and are tight. Weaves and extensions take almost more maintenance than your own actual hair. Cutting my hair seemed like a marvelous solution until my hair started growing faster out of spite.

So for the past two months I’ve done nothing to my hair besides wash it and leave it alone. Oh, I’ve tossed a wig on it to go to church and work. I’ve grown tired of taking “my hair” on and off, so now what? I’ve decided to get dreads. I’ve googled them, talked to people with them, and thought about how they might change my life. I’m hoping that maybe my hair will now finally cooperate if it’s given more freedom to do what it wants—without chemical interruption or excessive amounts of temporary manipulation.

The Reason

So why even go through all of these hair changes? Well, as a child I didn’t have much of a choice. As a teenager I wanted to fit in. As an adult, I’m still figuring out what I really want. My hair has pretty much been my social in. However, dreads aren’t exactly mainstream. Am I trading social acceptance for self liberation? Maybe trying to live without peer pressure is just too foreign of a concept. At this age, shouldn’t peer pressure not even be an issue? Maybe, like me, it reinvents itself over the years.