i resent her because i used to have the longest hair. of course, every black female tells this story, but it’s true. i had hair that surpassed my butt. from the time i was born, to the time i was about 5, my hair was never permed. i always had a blowout & my hair was “diana ross-puffy”. it was huge, and long, and majestic. and then my mom started perming it. it was still long, but not as long as it used to be. it was always straight, and she admitted to me that she kept perming it “because it was easier”. she would also indirectly teach me that anything other than relaxed hair was ugly. little did i know, that my hair kept getting shorter and shorter, until it was just past my shoulders in high school. then i started doing my own hair. my mom wouldn’t help me so of course i burned it all off. as long as she didn’t have to do it, she didn’t give a fuck. so i was unhappy with it, until junior year of high school when i tried clip-in extensions. it was a hot mess, because my mom would get the cheap kind with super silky hair, and it never matched my dull hair. she never taught me how to blend my hair & people would make fun of me at school. again, she cared, but she didn’t care. She would never teach me how to do my hair, but always reminded me of how ugly it was. i tried weave about a year ago, and i felt beautiful again. i had long hair, and it was straight. of course the lifespan of a weave is dependent upon how well you take care of it. i didn’t know that at the time. i would never wash it, or comb it out, and it looked like amanda bynes’ wigs. i had to learn how to take care of my weave, and it took alot of trial and error. when i went to college, my weave was getting ragedy and due to my college budget, i couldn’t afford another one of the same quality, so i said fuck it. my mom offered to sew in some scraps of different colors into my head, but i just looked at her in disappointment, due to the fact that it was utterly ratchet to even mention that option. so i took it out. she ran a quick perm through it, again, “because it’s easier” and i finally saw my hair after a year. i didn’t know how to style it, or what to do with it. i had to re-learn everything. it was shoulder-length and i was happy. over time, i realized that the texture was different. my roots had a stubborn wave to it. i liked it. so from then on i said no to perms, and now i’m four months into my natural hair journey. my mom, as usual, throws shade at my hairstyles and indirectly calls my hair ugly. she even made me straighten it for thanksgiving dinner. i’d like to think that i have very pretty hair that goes against the stereotypical fro (fros are pretty too). she just doesn’t understand me, but i understand her. i just wished she raised me with an option of natural hair.
