My first memory of feeling insecure has to do with my hair. It was the lightest of blonds when I was little; thick, coarse, frizzy, and wholly different than any other little girls’ I knew. Strangers at the store or at church would ask if they could touch it. Lots of people commented on it. I can clearly remember another child telling me my hair looked like fuzzy worms.
I can remember sitting at my desk in first grade and staring at the back of the girl in front of me. Her hair had been wet when she got to school, and I watched it dry, smooth, shiny, and perfectly in place. I longed for hair that would dry like that.
As I grew up, I learned about products and curling irons and flat irons. I learned that my hair has a lot of curl to it, and I learned various ways to fight the frizz. I’ve spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours trying to make my hair straight and smooth and submissive.
Over the last few years, I have slowly been coming to terms with the hair that I have. I’ve gone entire months without touching my flat iron. I’ve started to research how one cares for hair that is mostly wavy, has some sections that spiral, and some pieces that on some days don’t curl at all. This summer, for the first time in my life, I’ve had friendly thoughts toward my hair in its natural state.
It feels funny to write that, and even funnier to share it publicly. I write this blog in my role as a psychologist, and hair seems like a strange topic to choose to write on.
But when I think about my hair, I’m not thinking about some abstract, removed, shallow thing. My hair is a part of me, and when I think about my hair, I’m thinking about myself. It’s not who I am, but it is a part of who I am. It’s a reflection of myself and an expression of myself.
And I know that most women have a hair story. We can talk about our major haircuts, and the emotions that triggered them. We can list the things we love or hate about our hair. We can tell you about the hair we wish we had. We can talk about our hair curling more when we got a pregnant, falling out when we got sick, or our feelings about going gray.
And if it’s not our hair, there is something about our physical appearance that we’ve played with, wrestled with, felt ashamed of, and sometimes embraced. Maybe it’s freckles, the way we blush easily, our body shape or size, or the laugh lines around our eyes.
It can be really fun to play with our appearance, to color our hair, wear makeup, and to experiment with how we present ourselves. It can be fun to explore various ways that our outer selves can reflect our inner selves by playing with how we dress, do our hair, and present ourselves.
But for a long time, I straightened my hair because I felt like it looked wrong if I didn’t. I felt like my natural hair was embarrassing. I wasn’t having fun by playing with my appearance; I was trying to change something that felt shameful.
And I am done with that. I’m done with believing that any part of how I was made is shameful or wrong. I don’t want my daughters to believe that about themselves, nor do I want to project that into the world.
As silly as it sounds, I have decided to make friends with my hair, in all it’s wildness and unpredictability. I’ve decided to think friendly thoughts about it and learn how to take care of it for what it is, not what I wish it was.
Who knew that letting my hair do what it wants to do could feel like an expression of freedom?