The Big Chop

New Years Eve 2009, I had my Aunt Tana give me my last perm- until further notice.  I’d been toying with the idea of “going natural” for some time.  My freshman year at Hampton University, Aunt Tana would come down to visit me every few months and perm and maintain my hair.  During my sophomore year, I learned how to straighten my hair and lengthen the time between perms- something that I continued to do throughout the rest of my college career.  I remember classmates always complimenting me on my hair; how silky and shiny it was.  I appreciated that and took great pride in my hair regimen- even though it took about 5 hours to wash and blow dry the hair, grease the scalp and straighten the hair with my ½ inch Conair flat irons (the longest part).  It was a work out! In early 2009 I purchased a larger Conair flat iron, therefore cutting the flat ironing process in half (probably less than that) and could usually have my hair done in about 2 hours flat! That was clearly a major achievement! Sometime after graduation I thought about growing my perm out because I was only perming my hair about 2 times a year.  I figured if I could go 6 months without a perm, then I could go longer.  When I began hanging out with 3 of my closest friends, who have been natural for years, I toyed with the idea even more.  It was obvious that the maintenance was still necessary, however, it was even more obvious that without a perm, their beautiful crowns were full of thick beautiful hair.  There were no excessive amounts of hair all over their bathroom floors and they never complained about how thin their edges were.  Only I did that.  Motivation. 

So let’s fast forward to about 17 days ago, on a pretty cool Sunday afternoon. At this point, I’d weighed all the options of cutting my hair.  Isn’t my head too big? What will I look like? It will be less work. I don’t want to look crazy!  Will I have to wear make-up everyday? For several months, I’d asked my friends over and over again what they thought I would look like if I were to cut my hair. Some said I would look great while others suggested that I continue to allow my hair to grow out.  Speaking of the growing out phase: I was all for it until one evening I didn’t comb through my new growth well enough, and ended up pulling out a great deal of my hair.  I was devastated to say the least.  After that fiasco, I realized that I was tired of the ponytails, hair pomade, brushing and pulling and excessive dryness all for the sake of having hair that touched my shoulders.  But I still wanted my hair.  Well after several trips to the bathroom to stare in the mirror, while pulling my hair back to see how I might look, and several stare downs with my little sister Dhaujee, whom I’d enlisted to give me the BC (Big Chop), plus one sentence from my mother, “She’s a punk.” I decided to cut it.  All I needed was for someone to tell me that I wasn’t going to do it.  

Dhaujee pulled my hair into a ponytail and told me that she was going to cut a bit off at a time.  She made 3 cuts.  Snip. Hair in hand. Snip. Hair on floor. Snip. No hair left!  I put the hair in the trashcan and stared at it for a moment.  I didn’t feel anything! It was all gone, and I was fine with that!  I just knew that I’d have a break down of some sort, but once my hair hit the trashcan so did my fears.  It really is just hair and I was in love with the fact that it was finally gone!  I kept smiling at myself in the mirror.

On the flip side, when I showed my mother my new hair cut and asked her if she liked it she plainly told me, “No.” When I asked her why she said, “Because I worked too hard to get it to grow.” o_O Honestly… that pissed me off.  As a little girl, my hair took a very long time to grow.  I didn’t have the little ghetto girl ponytails (You know; the ones that don’t really gather and go into the hair bows lol) but my hair was short.  As time went on, it began to grow longer and longer.  I’m 24 now so if I want to cut my hair, guess what? I’m going to cut my hair.  It hurt my feelings that she didn’t like it, because she actually made it known by barely speaking to me for a few days.  Again, this is over hair. My hair. I digress.

Since cutting my hair, I’ve gotten several compliments.  When I wake up in the morning it’s all matted together and leans to the left, which makes me laugh.  The right side is more tightly coiled than the left, which is straight in the front and has a loser curl in the back.  Some days it’s really fly, and other days it’s just a mess.  And you know what? I like it.  And I don’t care if you don’t!