What do you prefer? Curly or Straight hair? Are you more attracted to straight or curly hair? Is straight hair better than curly hair? Those were all questions I was asking myself before making one of the biggest decisions of my life. Being of Dominican descent, I grew up wearing either child-like hairstyles or going to a salon once every other week to get a Dominican blowout. Eventually I reached the age when my mom decided to perm my hair. This changed everything.
For those who don’t know, when you perm your natural hair, you can permanently damage it unless you cut it all off. And that’s what I did. I cut it all off. And you might be wondering. Why would I do that? To me, not only was it a new start to my hair journey, but it also began a new path in my journey of life.
In 2020, during the pandemic, I was struggling to find myself. I felt like something was missing; I needed a reset. Since I was in quarantine around the time, I couldn’t visit salons to do my hair, and I struggled a lot with doing it myself. I wanted to try something new, so that’s when I decided to start wearing my hair in its natural form. My hair was essentially dead because I had been perming it since the age of 9. I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy journey to get it back to its natural state.
After watching many Tik Toks and YouTube videos I knew what I needed to do. I hurried to my mom’s room and looked at her and said, “I’m cutting all of my hair off”. She replied, “You’re crazy, but if that’s what you want and you’re sure of it… go ahead”. That statement made it official. I was going to cut my hair.
Two months after school began, I cut it all off. And no, I did not go completely bald, but my hair was pretty short. I sat in shock for a good five minutes. I looked similar to a pre-pubescent boy. But the next day when I got out of bed, I felt so lightweight. It felt like a ton of bricks were lifted off my shoulders and I could finally relax. This was the beginning of a fresh, new start.
Going from permed hair to natural hair is not easy. When you cut all your dead off, not only is your hair healthier and easier to maintain, but it also reveals your true natural hair type. I have type 3c/4a hair which means I have pretty tight, coily hair. When I cut my hair, I had to re-learn what my hair type needs like hydration, protein, nutrients, and much more. My hair soon became like a new plant that I bought at Home Depot that I needed to feed in order for it to grow.
My hair comes with a lot of maintenance, and I’m pretty sure I’ve spent over $500 a year on hair products; This journey is definitely not for everyone. The more I have learned and experimented with different products, the more my hair grows and strengthens. But as my hair grows, so do I.
I like to compare my hair journey to my life journey because it’s a great way for me to see my progress visually and mentally. When I cut my hair, it was the beginning of my junior year of high school, and the first year I went back to school after being in quarantine. Everything was new, and I had to adapt to a lot of new things in order to get through high school. The same way I nurtured my hair is the same way I nurtured myself into a new reality. I had a new beginning to think about. I was a junior, so I had to start focusing on my future, my education, and who I wanted to become as a person.
My hair growth is equivalent to my personal growth. It grows over time, there will be bad hair days, times where I must take a step back and ‘trim’ people out so new people can come in the same way new hair grows in. There will also be days where I give up and don’t even want to do my hair or get up in the morning. But the good hair days I have had made me realize that it’s always worth doing my hair, and to try to be a good person in the same vein. Cutting my hair helped me to see life differently and be able to start a new blank page in my life.
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