To Chop or Not?

I don't have any pictures of me as a little kid on my computer b/c there were no digital cameras n such when I was a little kid.

Ever since I can remember I've had middle length dark brown hair that has been the bane of my existence. Unlike the other girls I've known through my life-cousins, friends, classmates, you get the picture-my hair was the exact opposite of thick and resilient or super soft and curly. I blame this lack of shiny, thick, luxurious hair  on my parents because instead of expressing the hair genes of oe of my parents, I got stuck with both. Which wouldn't be bad if my dad didn't have Duke Ellington's waved do and my mom didn't have thick, tightly curled hair and I inherited my mom's thickness and dad's texture. Alas, I have oddly wavy and curly thin hair that breaks the second you look at it wrong hence it never getting much longer than my shoulders. All of my childhood I fought with my oddly textured hair and battled to get it healthy, shiny, long, and bouncy like the other girls I encountered. However, no one could get my hair to grow, let alone grow without breaking.

That's me on the right in the seond row, amongst a sea of girls that lok a lot like me...sigh cheerleaders

In high school, after several years of going to hair stylists who over processed my precious hair, I found a stylist who knew how to make my stringy hair appear to have body and life. With my mom's permission I cut it into a bob that grazed the nape of my neck and even highlighted it before shipping off to college. Since I went to a school that was 45mins-1 hr away from my home town, I was able to keep up with my hair appointments and my hairdresser who saved my fragile hair after I let a pal lighten a patch of my dark brown hair to a rusty blondish brown color-do not let girls dye your hair in their dorms bad idea it burned and lifted in under 5 minutes. After finishing school hair in tack, despite losing track of my stylist during the 6-8months after Katrina, I got my first trendy cut, a bi-level bob a-la Posh in about 2006/7 and even colored my entire head a light brown that matched my skin.

<><>

                               At formal or maybe it was semi-formal with a long, luxurious locks

My hair battles didn't start again until I moved to Atlanta where apparently hair dressers don't know what kind of relaxer to put on hair that is not super thick and resilient, or that you can't treat colored hair the same way you treat virgin hair. Needless to say after 6 months in the A my hair was still growing strong-it grows pretty fast and always does- but it was stringy-er than ever and was breaking off to no end. I eventually began to take care of my hair myself which wasn't that bad until another set of untrained hands used a super harsh relaxer on my lil hair, resulting in a massive patch of hair falling out. I cried, died and stopped going to her asap. I tried my hands at the Dominicans but those driers on relaxed hair was a big no, no, and I tried going back to the first girl I went to in the A but the fact that she permed my hair when I told her to not when her professional expertise told her to left my hair weak and a mess.

Pre-Atl with my light brown bob smushed unde rmy cap

After much deliberation I decided to try the natural route, and ahh haa my hair is back to the length, sheen, and bounce that it had when I was at home. Apparently all I needed to do was stop processing it and let it be. The problem now is that in order to be fully natural I have to cut my relaxed hair off, which means cutting almost all of the length of my hair. Did I mention my hair has never been shorter than chin length since I was a kid? Did I also mention that I have a serious habit of touching, twirling, shaking, and stroking my hair? (Friends call it my "white girl tendencies/mannerisms" and they developed sometime between me watching the movie Clueless and starting college) I've been a huge fan of flat iron it, bump it, ponytail it, headband it, etc for bad hair days ever since I was tasked with combing my own hair sometime in 5th grade and am dreading having to do something with my mess of oddly curled short hair-that my hairdresser promises will look awesome. I mean worst comes to worst I can weave it up-I do live in Atlanta home of the 8 foot Pocahontas Indian Remy weave-however fake hair and the thought of it on my entire head makes me itchy for some odd reason. Then again, maybe I just need to get used to the idea of having short curly hair. I mean my hair does not and never will grow straight, so I might as well get over it and it'll grow back after a year or so.

I promise to post pics of my short cut next week...