Secondly, I have been avoiding talking too much about my hair, purely because it’s just hair, it doesn’t count for much in the grand scheme of real life. It pales dismally in comparison to things like good health, family, love and real and true joy. Well at least that’s the approach I am taking when it comes to my own hair and how I view hair in general.
I have been met with all kinds of reactions to my “new look”, people either love it or they don’t. I have had all kinds of comments thus far from positive ones like “you have that good hair” or “this look suits you” to negative comments such as “ooh you went natural, you’re so brave” to “Oooh I sympathise, I know what you are going through” all this said while sympathetic fingers unwelcomingly rummage their way through my curls and coils! My personal favourite, “You are trying to be Lupita Nyongo’o!!!”
I generally choose not to react to any of the comments about my hair, I always say thank you politely when complimented or ignore if someone says something negative. It really irks me though when I get sympathetic looks that almost suggest that the beholder of my unkempt bush is questioning why I would do a crazy thing like cut my long relaxed locks or why I would willingly chose to give up weaves… it takes a lot of willpower not to be rude or catty and tell such people off.
Another thing that gets my blood going is when people think they know me or what my personality is like by virtue of my hair, I am finding more and more that people think it’s strange that I listen to mind-numbingly shallow Hip Hop or that Bassline in Newtown is not my hangout spot of choice. I get the feeling that people expect me to be some really poetic Soul Sistah, who listens to the Roots and reads every Alex Haley book I can lay my hands on. Can I just be bold as to say that my hair and the type of music I listen to or what I read have no correlation! Is the assumption that when I had a weave down to my back that I somehow could not possibly be interested in certain things that only natural haired women would be interested in? I actually listened to the roots and read Alex Haley’s the Roots when my hair was very relaxed or weaved so that whole notion bears no weight!
I have to tell you I love my hair the way it is right now, when I had HEALTHY relaxed hair I loved my hair then too but I do agree that my natural hair suits me more. In terms of being brave for cutting my hair, yes some courage had to be exercised because I had never cut my hair so dramatically in my life and like any woman I was anxious about how it would turn out.
The main reason I chose to cut my hair was because I had gotten so used to having my hair in weaves or some sort of style that I was no longer used to my own real hair, I didn’t feel good about my hair or about myself when wearing my hair out, I didn’t appreciate my hair anymore. It didn’t help that my hair had suffered considerable damage and was very weak and brittle. I got sick of googling weave styles and recreating weave looks I had seen on celebs. I got tired of investigating whether the hair I was being sold was authentic Brazillian or not. I got tired of having my hairline suffer at the mercy of a stocking cap while my cropped-do stayed perfectly intact!
Cutting my hair wasn’t a decision I made on a whim, I did my research and I gave it some thought. However, cutting my hair was not some form of political or feminist statement, it is by no means a declaration of who I am, in the same vain as when I used to wear a weave. Cutting my hair was simply a matter of me exercising a personal choice. That’s the beauty of living in a democratic society, we get to choose! I don’t have any ill-feelings towards women who wear weaves or relaxed her or dreadlocks and I would never try to shove any natural hair propaganda down anyone’s throat. We are all free to choose what we do with our hair and free to wear it in any way we want. This was just me making a personal choice, that’s all really!
So the next time you gaze in bewilderment at someone with a head full of kinky, curly coils, rather save your sympathy for a more deserving cause.
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