Monday, August 31, 2009

my story

sorry ladies, i dont have a big dramatic story of why i decided to go natural. honestly i have always wanted to be natural. i didnt know at the time that it was called "going natural", i didnt even understand what i was doing to my hair each time it was relaxed. i was young, maybe eleven, when i decided that i wanted the big beautiful curls like the Ethiopian girls. they seemed to be the only ones i saw with hair that wasnt straight and lifeless. i didnt know why i couldnt achieve that look, i only knew that family and hair stylist kept telling me "you dont have that kind of hair" and "if you stop getting a relaxer your hair will fall out". not shed, not break off, but actually fall out????? well i didnt want to walk around "bald headed" because i stopped getting a relaxer so i put the thought to the back of my mind. what eleven year old wants to have chewed up hair? not me, not when my hair was already long and thick. it just wasnt the big, beautiful, bushy and sometimes frizzy curls that i dreamed of.
many many years later(about 3 years ago) a few of my friends started chopping their hair off to grow locks. i remember saying over and over again that one day i would go natural too. but i didnt want locks, i wanted an afro. so at the time i was working a job where all i did all day long was sit at a computer. i started researching how to care for African American hair and i came across many sites and forums. one of them being LFCF. i instantly fell in love with the information that was given. so about six months later i paid my fee and became a member(im Chebaby over there). anyway, at the time i was still relaxed, still felt like i was my hair. if my hair was out of place i was a hot ass mess. i had bleached my hair all shades of brown and blondes only to color over it with bright reds and almost purples lol.
i was in high school and the first half of college and you couldnt tell me my bright red hair wasnt the ish. i was fly.....that is until i took a picture and realized my hair was so thin that you could see through my curls and straight to my scalp. i was so heart broken. but i had already found long hair care forum so i used that site to help me get my relaxed hair up to par. i learned so much from products that i shouldnt use, all natural butters and oils that would help moisturize, thicken and benefit my hair. and then i started transitioning.

i didnt have to transition mentally though. it was all about the hair for me. i didnt have to learn that i was beautiful without long relaxed hair. didnt have to open my eyes and really see. i was already mentally natural. that was already who i was. i was just waiting for the outside of my appearance to show who i was on the inside. when people said i was crazy for wanting to walk around with "nappy" hair it didnt make me feel like this journey wasnt for me. didnt make me change my mind even for a little bit. it only made me sad that people couldnt except me wanting to be me. that made me sad but i pushed through it. i just continued to do research on what was good for my hair and what wasnt.
that didnt keep me from getting heat damage though. with the great products that i learned about on that wonderful forum i found the CHI flat iron. woooooowwwwww. i thought that was the best thing in the world for my hair. that was until i actually did the big chop. and then i saw all the real damage, even though i had been relaxer free for eleven months that flat iron fried the front of my hair. my bang area was completely straight, no bends, no curls, not even a zig zag in sight.



stay tuned for the rest of my big chop story.

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