Natural Rose

Tomorrow I will be getting my hair pressed (or straightened as some call it). I've been rockin' a natural for about a month or longer. There's always a big discussion of what's better Relaxed vs. Natural, etc. But my main focus is Self-Love--embrace your hair, no matter what state it's in. I have "black hair"..the most unique hair on Earth (in my opinion): you can braid it, straighten it, wear it loose, wear it tight, etc. It's fun. But it's also the most fragile hair, and I found that out the hard way *sigh*.

Going Natural was so liberating. I first let my "hair loose" my first semester of Senior Year (best class EVERRRR '09 BABAY). My friends and I had fun with my hair. I got in touch with my inner Flower-Child. Also, when basketball season started, I was the fierce black girl with the fro...which my Coach pointed out after I braided it back up. She said, "What happened to the hair?! You played better when it was in a fro!"..Gosh I miss Coach.

BUT, I had no clue what I was doing when it came to taking proper care of my hair. Mainly because I never had to deal with it really--I either had it in braids or had it pressed or The Madre took care of it (in elementary school when my head was still small and cute enough to wear pigtails). Sooo, that resulted in me doing what my white/asian/mexican,etc friends and that was washing their hair EVERYDAY. I knew I didn't HAVE to wash it frequently but I didn't know I wasn't SUPPOSE to. I'm vigorous when it comes to hygeine, so I loved washing my hair...and that resulted in hairdamage...so sad. SOOO SADDD. My hair had grown to an amazing length that Summer and BAM, it was gone. Not totally gone, but it was damaged. I learned two lessons after that...1) my hair is fragile and I need to learn how to take care of it 2) I learned not to invest my worth into my hair; it's beautiful as long as it's healthy, no matter what the length.

But after that..I put my hair in braids for the rest of the year.

Just recently, first year of college, I went natural again.

And of course people had their opinions--mainly my friends and family. Or other black people! (ie. the looks that say "Girl, you need to get a hotcomb through that). But I can't say it was all negative feedback--there are a lot of girls on campus who wear their hair natural and there's much love coming from them. It's crazy how we as a people have internalized that straight and/ or "good hair" is the only acceptable hair. I enjoy my hair. I'm grateful I have a full head of hair in the first place! I've been reading up on peoples blogs and Youtubing, etc and it's restored so much confidence in me about my hair. Because as a young woman, stuff like that matters to me--it's one way of expression for me.

There's alot I could say about this, but I just wanted to focus on Growth. Growing in Confidence. It's hard being a girl nowadays. All this pressure and whatnot.

I like where I am with myself at this moment. Where I can wake up and actually look myself in the mirror and smile. Took about 18 years. And still have some Growing to do.

[This was a vague post. A post that was the product of a year's worth of scattered thought, so if you feel like I was just skimming the surface, I was.]

Enjoy these various styles I've had over the past 2 years:

Beautiful.

-Bootszilla Babay; btrilogy