Another thing that makes me, me is my hair. I love it. It’s part of the very short list of things I love about myself.
This hasn’t always been the case, though. In high school, I put my hair through hell in the name of beauty. Beauty that was so prescriptive; if you didn’t conform, you were an outcast. Curly hair was so not a thing, and I straightened the life out of my curls to eliminate them entirely.
I was even too scared to go on school camp because that meant not having access to my straightener. I remember trying to find pills that would miraculously keep my hair straight. And I often looked at my friends with straight hair and felt completely jealous.
For a time, my Mom would let my sister and me get highlights. Our blonde youth was perfect. However, eventually, highlights got too costly, and my Mom stopped letting us get them. I did everything to my hair. I started with a wash-out colour, which didn’t wash out, leaving me with almost black hair. I then bleached and burned my hair. It was a particularly dark time for my once-golden locks.
I was one of those kids who had an afro of curls when I was a tiny tot, and back then, my perspective wasn’t corrupted by the fashion of the time.
It took me years to grow out and recover from the damage I had done. And even longer to accept my curls and care for them.
It feels almost silly to write about this, but I’ve come to love my hair, and I do what I can to care for it. It’s healthy and long, and I thoroughly enjoy it.
I look back at those former years, and I feel saddened. I wish I had never cared what others thought and had chosen to rock my curls. I wish I didn’t conform to others’ notions of beauty and instead defined my own standard of what is beautiful.
Tomorrow, I turn 35, and as I run my fingers through these curls I once despised, I’m reminded that some of life’s most profound victories are quiet ones.
Learning to love the parts of ourselves we once tried to destroy—that’s not just growth; it’s revolution.
Here’s to another year of choosing authenticity over conformity, one curl at a time.
