My black hair, Pt. 3

So, in late 2007, after a texturizer gone wrong,  yes I went back to the relaxer. I had been ready to physically go natural with my hair for a long time, but mentally I was struggling with it. An overweight black woman with an afro. I wasn't ready to stand out yet.

I live in Portland, Oregon. Not exactly a mecca for natural hair. Relaxers and weaves run rampant in this city. At times, I literally felt like the only woman with a Fro. I also had a corporate job at the time, and OHHH the comments I would receive during my first period of going natural-

"Can you wash it?"
It.
It is hair, and yes, HAIR can be washed.

"Your hair is fun. I wish I could do that".
No you don't, or else you would have.

After my very first big chop, I had to go to work the next day and I was racked with anxiety. To ease that, an African-American guy walked up to me, shook his head and said, "I don't like that. At all."

I was in my late 20's at the time, yet that single,tiny, stupid ass comment  from one of my own people, took me all the way back to my childhood. Feeling unwanted, black and nappy.

The Big Chop (going natural from relaxed by simply cutting off all the relaxed hair and starting anew with your own hair), is just as much psychological as it is physical. There are stigmas attached with afros, "nappy hair", dreadlocks, etc. Somehow, you are seen as less clean, less polished, even more BLACK, if you will. And the last thing we need in America is proud black folk. So slap some chemicals on, that are literally eating your scalp, so that you can be straight-haired and acceptable.

Race is just one aspect of a black woman's hair.

Femininity is another. My Husband loves my hair. LOVES it. But, that didn't stop me from feeling insecure, wondering if he thought I looked mannish or butch. No swing, bounce,no bun, no sexy ponytail. Just......me. Women are raised to believe that only straight and long hair, or hair that just moves in the breeze, is sexy and what attracts men to us. Yes, it is sexy.  TO THIS DAY, I have maybe one or two "long hair" dreams a year. I literally have dreamt that I had long hair, and that it was the answer to all of my insecurities. In my vivid dreams, I am whippin' that hair around like Tina Turner or Cher.I can see hair out of the corner of my eye! Men are all over me! Women are jealous of my long black hair!

And then, I wake up and am pissed when lift my hand to my head and feel my few inches of hair, versus my Rapunzel-like dream.

After months of being relaxed again, I was unhappy. My hair wasn't growing healthy. It was flat and boring. The small excema patches on my scalp would BURN every time I relaxed it. I have fine hair, and the relaxer was making it that much more fine, not full and thick like I wanted. I didn't feel like myself at all. This was anti-me.

I was ready to be natural again, this time for good.

I just needed some sort of a boost. Then, 2008 unfolded..............