Hello beautiful people. I hope you all are enjoying your week thus far. Today I felt that it was appropriate to share with you why I decided to cut my hair off. I have always been one to like shorter hair on myself but this is the shortest I have ever gone. There were many factors leading up to this decision. First, I want to give you all a bit of background on my hair journey. Most specifically my natural hair journey.
My hair has been in its natural state for about 5 years now. I decided to revert back to my natural hair during the summer before my junior year in high school. Before that, my hair was permed since about elementary school. I battled with thin hair throughout middle and high school because of the perm. It had slowly damaged my hair and it became unmanageable for me.
I began seeing a huge trend amongst black women during that time of change in high school. They all seemed to be reverting back to their natural hair. The hair they were born with. I fell in love with this trend but I had no idea what my hair was capable of. I never really saw my hair in its natural state before but I was eager to see the change. Thus, I did my first big chop and I absolutely loved it.
Now to fast-forward a few years, I began struggling with my natural hair. I found myself constantly comparing my natural hair texture to the natural hair "gurus" on YouTube and Instagram. I felt that people glorified their hair and I tried so very hard to manipulate my hair to resemble theirs. I began following several motivational or inspirational natural hair Instagrams and blogs. I began seeing another trend amongst these "inspirational" blogs. Most of their natural hair pics did not inspire me. It was as if they only focused on one type or texture of hair. The hair that was seen as "good hair".
This is when I began to doubt my natural hair texture. I began to see it as an ugly flaw. I started comparing myself to other people within the natural hair community that were constantly being glorified for their "good hair". This began to weigh on me heavy. To the point were I focused each day and each second of my day on my hair. I worried about how my hair looked, how other people looked at me and my hair and more. I even tossed and turned at night thinking of different ways to manipulate my hair so that it could be glorified to. I can't truly explain why this became so important to me but it did and I began to lose focus on what made me beautiful.
After much reflection, I felt that it was time to cut my hair. This to me was my way of taking back my power. I find that I often hold too much importance to hair and makeup. We all do and I do not want that to be so. I hope that my story can somehow inspire you all to embrace the beauty of you and to be brave enough and strong enough to see that you are incomparable.
Embrace all of the beauty that is you!
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