Relax, It's Just Hair

I have seen everything. I just watched back-to-back episodes of Dr. Drew and the topic was African-American hair.

Really?

I have made it a point to never join in the conversation about Black hair because … it’s just hair. Is it really worth a conversation? Chris Rock seemed to think so. That made sense to me, but Dr. Drew? He looked like he really enjoyed being surrounded by so many beautiful sistahs.

Seriously, what is the big deal? Honestly, I do belong to a Black Hair Care forum (K.I.S.S.) but that is because I needed help with learning how to take care of my relaxed hair. I've been to many hair salons over the years but no one every taught me how to take care of my hair. The salons were good for styling but not hair care.

Here's my hair when I was a baby:

Today, my hair is relaxed and is shoulder length. I only relax my hair twice a year (June, December), I may use heat on my hair once a month and I wear protective styles 98% of the time. What does all this mean? Probably not much to most of you. I got my first relaxer when I was in fifth grade. It was picture day and my mom wanted me to have straight hair. That is how it started and here's the result of my first relaxer.



Here’s my thing: I’m relaxed and will always be relaxed. There is nothing wrong with natural hair and I see some of the natural-hair girls and I am like whoa! Natural hair is just beautiful. I just don’t think it would be cute on me. Actually, I just don’t have the patience to re-learn how to take care of my natural hair.

What I don’t appreciate is when some natural hair advocates characterize women with relaxers as being women full of self-hate. Making statements that the only reason we have relaxers is because we are trying to be “white”; that we’re selling out. That bugs me because no one loves me more than I love me. There is no hate over here. I have to do what is best for me. I prefer my hair to be relaxed. Period.

There was a short period of time when I wore braids, weave … I’ve done it all and I’ve found that relaxers work best for me.

You do you and I’ll do me. Why the debate? We’re all beautiful and all different. And what is wrong with that?

My Project and a Little Story

It’s Friday and I’m exhausted from being all deep. So I decided to lighten things up a bit.

I said I needed a project so my hair is my new project. This is Friday’s hair.



I am so regretting the fact that I cut my hair so my project is to get it back to shoulder length by my next birthday in October. Hopefully, I can at least get it into a ponytail by summer. So that means, protective styles, no heat, deep conditioning and supplements. I won’t bore you with updates and all that, because really, who cares besides me?

So this week I was told a story:

There’s this guy who is dating three different women. No one in in this scenario is delusional enough to believe that there is any exclusivity on anyone’s part. They are all just pretty much doing their own thing and they all seem to be satisfied with the situation.

The guy is concerned because one of the women, the one who is in the #1 position, seems to be getting a little attached. They’ve been seeing each other for about two years and even though she says this is a perfect situation for her, her actions seem to contradict this. He says he’s concerned because he doesn’t want her to wake up one day with regrets because she wasted so much time on him because she thought he would change. She thinks she can wait him out.

He says he’s told her his concerns but she protests vehemently and says she’s fine. He feels bad because he knows she’s going to get hurt in the end.

Should he take her at her word and keep seeing her or cut her off altogether?

Don't you just love a good moral dilemma?

Om

I had a meltdown at work last week. A full-blown meltdown complete with cussin’ and tears. Ugh!

I can’t remember the last time that happened.

My officemate witnessed the onset of the aforementioned meltdown and she knew something bad was about to happen. “Take some deep breaths and go walk around the building,” she advised. I took her advice. I stormed out of my office and headed for the stairs. I walked up four flights and was still mad. I kept breathing and I kept walking. I needed someone to talk to. I couldn’t return to my office because if I ran into the person that caused this kind of emotion in me, I would have been escorted from the building. For real.

I started praying. “Lord, who should I talk to? Who can I trust?” See, I had to pray for direction because I’m not all buddy-buddy with many people in the building. And truth be told, I didn’t need a buddy. I needed someone who would talk me down and give me sound, objective advice.

God came through and led me to the right person. I made a quick call to see if he was free and I went to his office, asked if I could close the door and took a seat across from him. I tried to come up with a hypothetical situation but my mind wouldn’t allow it. So I just unloaded on him. He put a box of tissues in front of me and let me vent. Afterward, he spoke to me in calm tones, asked pertinent questions and gave me some great professional advice. At the end of the conversation, the tears were gone and I was smiling and calm again. I waited about an hour or so, and requested a private meeting with the person who sent me into this tailspin. We got the situation ironed out and life is good again.

At the end of the day, I thought that all my prayer and meditation at the beginning of each day wasn’t working. After all, wasn’t I supposed to be able to better control my emotions? Well, if you know me, you’d know that I did positively, and effectively control my emotions. When I was younger and more hot-headed and more arrogant, I walked off of jobs (that I needed) for less. So yeah, I believe I handled myself pretty well. I’m still employed and there are no hard feelings between me and the other person.

All the prayer and meditation in the world is not going to change the fact that I am a human being with real feelings and emotions. If you try to screw me over or if I perceive that you are trying to screw me over, I’m going to react. How I react is up to me and will determine the outcome of the situation.

I’m cool now. Cool as a white box fan.

Oh yeah, I got my hair cut on Saturday. Like I said, nothing drastic. Just off my neck and easy to do. Cute, right?

Daughters are a Blessing

At least mine is.

I don’t always recognize the blessing that she is because she is a teenaged girl and I don’t generally care for teenaged girls. I was one, so I know what I’m talking about.

One of the benefits of having a younger woman in my house is that when I complain about how much I hate my hair, she offers to do it for me. When I was on the verge of cutting it all off she stopped me and brought me back to basics.

It was so simple. All she did was roll it up. When I was her age I think I slept in rollers most nights. How did I get away from this simple practice? No heat, less damage. And for the most part, I look cute again and I’ve put down the scissors.