When Loving Your Hair Feels Like Rebellion
On June 15th, I jumped into a swimming pool as an act of self-love.
See, when I was a little girl, I loved to swim. I was carefree. I would cannonball in the deep end. I would create a fin with my hand, place it on my head, and morph into a shark. And by the end of the summer, little Fran was golden— hair in braids, secretly barefoot in the backyard, and covered in mosquito bites.
Fast-forward to pre-pubescent years.
I’m nine years old, and I’ve been convinced that my hair isn’t ‘good’.
I wanted my hair to be loose in the water when I swam like a mermaid— being a shark with goggles wasn’t good anymore. And I wanted it to be blonde like my friend’s— the box braids weren’t beautiful anymore.
I wanted hair that was “easy to manage,” silky, and smooth because that’s what I saw in the shampoo commercials and on my dolls and in the teen magazines and on all my friends. So I got it chemically straightened, (if you don’t know what a relaxer is, then watch this video) and began my slow journey to damaged, fried hair, so that I could feel beautiful, so I could feel “normal."
Initially, I was excited about the relaxer because my mom got them, and she was beautiful. And I was ready to be beautiful. Not to mention, it would make it more convenient for her to do my hair. And besides, I’d finally have what I wanted (which was to do that thing girls with straight hair do, where they push their hair back and smile, and it falls back down to perfectly frame their face. I saw it all the time on TV. Mind you, that never happened to me, even with straightened hair, because it still wasn’t the same texture as that.)
Over the next 10 years, I would be told how beautiful I was now that I had straight(ish) hair.
And how much better I look with straight hair.
And how they "loved my hair and it looked so pretty", after I straightened it, and then put acceptable, wavy-curls in with more heat.
And then, feel the need to explain that they shouldn’t "wish they had my hair" because it wasn’t really MY hair and my hair is actually the worst. And getting confused looks from people who didn’t understand, and then further explaining that I get my hair relaxed.
And then getting more bewildered stares and changing the language to “chemically straightened like how a perm makes straight hair curly, but the opposite because my hair is already curly. Get it?”
By the time I graduated high school in 2014, I was done burning my hair into conformity. It was damaged, and breaking off, so I cut it to my shoulders, and began learning about afro hair. I started watching Naptural85 on Youtube and reading CurlyNikki’s blog.
I was ready to start growing out my natural hair.
This is me in 2014. Look at those ends!!
The first promise I kept to myself was in 2015 when I cut off all my relaxed hair, revealing the texture and kinks and curls and frizz that I had never truly seen. This wasn’t the texture I had when I was small; and to me, it was worse. These weren’t the Shirley Temple ringlets I had seen in pictures. My hair felt dry and crunchy with some coarse sections and some smooth sections and no definition anywhere.
I was disappointed as I flashed back to being a kid. To the grease on my scalp and the oil on my strands that slid down my face and onto my pillow. To the tender-headedness, and the ‘stop crying, or else’ and subsequent denial of my pain that I’d carry into adulthood. To that section of type 4 hair at my crown that was ‘not good’ and the main reason I relaxed my hair in the first place. To feeling gross and ugly.
It would take me years to learn how to take care of the hair I was taught to hate, how to love the round afro it had turned into, how to care for myself differently than I ever had. It was uncharted territory.
I was scared to let anyone see it without me styling it. I became obsessed with keeping it healthy and undamaged and as perfectly defined as possible. And once again, my hair was controlling my life and keeping me bound.
I attempted to manage how others would perceive me, especially since I didn’t feel supported when I cut it. It was seen as a direct attack to the choices made for me as a child and an act of rebellion against everything I was taught about my worth. And although I regained one part of myself, I felt like had lost another. Five years later, I can look back on this choice as one that put me on a different path, the path back home to myself, although I couldn’t see it at the time.
After a few years of growing it out, proving to myself the Black hair can grow long, I chose to cut my hair just for the hell of it. I loved my choice. I loved having a sleek, low-maintenance haircut. (Here’s a video about it, if you want to watch!)
I felt like myself, deeply connected to the woman I was becoming.
I felt powerful and alive. So I clung to that self-love in the midst of being misunderstood, and made another promise to myself as a reminder of my freedom.
The next promise I would keep was this: “I will jump into a pool. And this baptism will heal me.” I didn’t realize until I started writing this anecdote that swimming would reconnect me with my inner-child, my light and my freedom.
But, on a summer evening that August, I cannonballed into the deep end again. Only this time, I emerged, a goddess, a being united- mind, body, soul.
And every time I jump into water, I emerge in freedom and beauty, fearless and capable of anything.
June 15, 2020: Tears and Pool-Water