I’ve cut my hair short thrice in my 20-something lifetime. The first time, I was around 11 years. I disliked my hair, It was triggered by the random comments I got from all the adults in my life even my mother; “you have a lot of hair, your hair is not as soft as your mothers’, your hair is too curly, it shrinks fast.” At the salon, I’d get comments such as, “it takes me forever to braid it,” and so many others. They slowly made me dislike my hair and salons altogether. I slowly lost confidence in my hair.
One morning, my aunt came to visit. I was undoing cornrows so I could go and get others neatly done for school. She caught me crying while combing my hair. She offered to help and while at it, she kept whispering to me “you know you can always shave if you do not want to keep it?”. That’s where my first idea came from. I didn’t know I had the option of getting rid of my hair. Thanks to my aunty, I was now, more than ever, determined to cut it. I asked for salon money and went to the barbershop instead, I sat down and asked a young gentleman who owned the place to cut my hair. He touched my hair and asked me, “are you sure?” “just cut it” I said. For the first time in my life, I got a compliment about my hair but it did not change my mind. He said, “you have beautiful long hair, why would you want to cut it?” I looked at him and asked him to cut it, he hesitated for a long minute then said, “Sawa” (alright). I walked home with short hair, almost bald. My mother was speechless. I gave back the change from the salon money. My aunt admitted to asking me to cut my hair because she thought it was stressing me out. My mom was angry, I could feel it, she did not say anything to her or to me. She never did actually. I cut my hair out of spite, nothing more, I hated it, I hated that it made everyone sick but that one compliment from the barber stayed.
Years later when I finally went to high school, I started growing it again. This time, peers would actually compliment it. I kept reminding myself, this isn’t as bad as I thought. I let it grow. I would trim it often but not too short. After high school a few years later I decided to look for a way to maintain it. I decide to try dreadlocks. It was a manageable style and adventurous. I was already on campus, second-year first semester. Two weeks later, I went home. My mother was in shock to see me in dreadlocks, “why did you put these things?” then the stereotypes of people with dreadlocks came raining down, only this time I did not care.
Two years later, I had beautiful dreadlocks, admirable. I even tried to dye them copper brown, and I liked it. This time, I was suffering from depression. I nursed major anger issues. It was not about my hair, it was from a series of situations that I had in my life at that time. It was really wrecking my soul. I was silent. I could not talk to anyone about anything. That aunt’s voice, “you know you can always cut it right?” came back again and again and this time it was persistent. The decision to cut my hair started growing in me. I thought, if I cut it, I would be so happy. It would be over. I do not have to feel all these emotions that I cannot even express. I cut my hair, chopped it all, put it in a bag, washed my head and slept. The next morning it hit me, WTF HAPPENED TO MY HEAD. I had to recollect myself and walk to a barbershop nearby so they could even it out for me. I started braiding it. It grew back fast then two years later I went back to dreadlocks.
No comments:
Post a Comment