*tug tug, POP*
"Ooouucchh-a!"
"You better hold still! I don't know how you ended up so tender-headed, but you're gonna have to grow out of it..."
I laugh as flashbacks of my BP (before perm) days play in my mind... I can remember being 8 or 9 and having exhausted ALL of my resources (aka my cousins) for getting my hair done. Everyone tried because they loved my hair, but like dominoes they each dropped & gave up, pledging to NEVER do my hair again.
You see... I was the tender-headed one between me and my sister (ok... in my family). Technically, we'd both cringe whenever a comb was raked through our kinks, but by this time my sister had a relaxer and I... was officially "the cryer".
My mom would always compliment my hair and tell me she never wanted me to get a relaxer because she didn't want my texture to change. But as I got older (and she as well) and baretts on 6 random braids was no longer considered an age-appropriate hairstyle, we started to run out of options for my hair. So, in 1999 at the ripe age of 11, I finally convinced my mom into letting me relax my hair. We decided to stick with children's relaxers (PCJ then Just For Me) because "they wouldn't mess up my texture". We're going to save that discussion for another day though.
Life was grand after that. My hair kept growing for the most part and, thanks to some middle school classmates, I learned how to wrap my hair on my own.
Fast-Forward to 2010 and I decided that my September relaxer was going to be my last one. I had to have my hair fresh for my birthday (in October) and I had already started waiting 6 months in between relaxers so... it was time.
It took me almost 7 months into my transition to learn about "transitioning" and all the other information online regarding natural hair and the journey to it. Like everyone else I became a little obsessed with researching and styling and hair maintenance.
And, like most of us, one of the first things I learned was the appropriate way to detangle and/or comb through my hair...
This is when I discovered the truth.
The truth being... I'M NOT TENDER-HEADED!!
I'm not sure how many of you had this discovery, but I promise I feel bamboozled and gyped from my childhood.
And then after I finally cut off my relaxer... and REALLY started styling my own hair and discovered my curl pattern. .. Yea I felt like I had been played my whole life. I mean really, for the first time in my life I saw that it was EVERYone else who was crazy and not me.
That moment you realize that your hair, in all of it's kinky, coily, glory, was never made to be raked through like leaves. That an afro comb is not really your friend. And that Blue Magic is not "Everything". That moment you realize that your mom truly just had no idea what she was doing to your hair...
Yea... THAT moment.
It's almost liberating. It's as if the weight of shame you felt because you just couldn't help but cringe in sheer pain each time that afro comb attempted to make its way from root to end and back again through your dry, but blue magic coated coils.... has veen lifted!
Yea... that moment.
I love that moment because I know that I will be able to pass on the knowledge to not just my peers, but also my Mom (who has been rocking her natural for a few years now) and anyone else.
And... I did...
The following summer I helped facilitate a discussion about hair care with the teen girls at my church. And it was Awesome.
So... I just wanted to let you naturals-formally-known-as-tender-headed that you have won.
And if you actually have a sensitive scalp...??
Well...
then...
this wasn't for you. Lol
Later people (:
♡♥
-Benita
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