Okay, so one thing about me is I am all about Unity, but I am also about black pride. We need to take back our history, learn who we are and take pride in ourselves… Our true natural selves. *Crickets chirping* Hey, I’m just saying, I had some problems with the perm last year, so my friend/hairdresser suggested that I start over. So I started getting sew ins and I don’t know what got me started on it natural hair websites, but now I am obsessed. Okay I didn’t make it a year on the natural hair journey because I could no longer afford the growing out process, so she decided to go back to, what the Napturals call, the creamy crack. Okay, so my hair ended up being thicker and healthier than it has been since I was a young pre teen, (because after 13 years old, my hair was permanently damaged). I had some good hair days in the past but, I always experienced breakage.
Now I am crazy about going natural again, but the big chop is what freightens me. I am trying to psyche myself up to have short natural hair from the mother land. I have seen so many women walking around holding their head high, but while I was temporarily natural, I couldn’t hold mine up. I am ashamed of my behavior, but it is a work in progress. I try to be the person who doesn’t care what anyone thinks, and who upholds my beliefs strongly, but how can you erase hundreds of years of racism and oppression, and hurt, self hate, and shame. I hope to have a daughter because if she doesn’t learn from me, I will learn through her how to be a strong black woman. I don’t want to put perms in her hair or sizzle her neck with straightening combs.
Though I was weak I have to give a shout out (to people still call it that?) To the website that showed me the light, and helped me in my decision to go natural and eventually go natural one of these days :Nappturality.com, Motowngirl.com, afrobella.com. I really did like how soft my hair was, but it was in shock so I couldn’t enjoy it because there was a lot of small chops here and there that I had to endure to get the perm off of my ends while trying to save as much length as possible. My fiance’ even liked it and that was most important because while I refuse to define my looks by a man’s standard I do value my boo’s opinion, and if he didn’t like it I still would have continued on that journey. I am just glad that he understands the value of going back to our roots……..