Back in January I decided it was time to start my natural hair journey. I had been thinking about it for awhile, especially since I had started to see the damage being done by having chemically processed it for so long.
See, I had been processing my hair with chemicals since I was 12. The very first time my mom allowed someone to relax my hair, it got so damaged it began falling out. Here I was, a pre-teen, finally allowed to get rid of the corn rowed up do my mother had been meticulously doing every Sunday since I could remember, running around school flaunting the long flowing hair I had dreamed of and finally achieved, only to have it taken away again, by my own doing no less.
Imagine being a pre-teen in the late 80’s and suddenly having to go to a barber shop so they can chop off what’s left of the hair you so desperately wanted and being left with a short afro of super curly hair that’s difficult to comb through and gets you teased mercilessly at school with taunts of reclaiming the 70’s and other cruelties only kids can think up.
You see, relaxing, or perming as we in the black community call it, doesn’t just straighten our naturally curly hair. It completely kills the hair. “New growth”, the ‘unkempt’ thick hair coming in at the scalp, is our natural hair growing back in while the dead hair hangs down from the ends of it.
Once my hair got long enough, I begged my mom to allow me to chemically process it again, this time though with the ever popular “Jheri Curl”, demanding the ‘dry curl’ version so I wasn’t laughed at for leaving grease marks wherever my head touched (including people’s fingers!). I was never the cool kid, but I at least wanted to feel normal again.
Once that phase was over, I straightened my hair with an electric hot comb and curling iron each day, and in college went back to relaxing my hair so that it stayed straight for longer than a day.
Eventually it became part of the requirement to getting jobs. You see, wearing natural hair has been the biggest job opportunity killer in this world. Especially in the corporate world… even having a name that “sounded black” could cost you a job opportunity, preventing you from even getting a call to talk about scheduling an interview. Showing up to said interview with your hair anything but relaxed and properly maintained could cost you the job completely, even if you were the most qualified, the most agreeable, the most charming, the smartest of all the candidates. And if you got the job and went natural after doing so? You could be fired for violating the company’s personal hygiene rules…
Why do I tell you all this? Because the hard part about choosing to go back to natural hair is not the act itself. It is the emotional trauma and baggage that I must sift through, the realization of how much of my identity, and of who I have become due to how I believed people perceived me and how I perceived myself, is tied up in how I wore and styled my hair.
The emotional and physical traumas I endured as I made those choices. Relaxing can burn skin if not done correctly, and for a long time I couldn’t afford to go to a salon to have it done, so I learned to do it myself. Lots of trial and error and burns to my scalp, ears, and sometimes neck/shoulders if I wasn’t quick enough to clean it off.
The emotions I had to process through to prepare myself for the final chop. The emotions I had to process through as I sat in the chair saying I’m ready and watching as the stylist cut off the last of the relaxed, dead hair. The emotions I went through as I watched her style it into something I thought was hideous.
Of feeling ugly and unwanted as I continued to process through the aftermath of a hard breakup and a final devastating revelation from said ex only hours after the final chop, while simultaneously trying to come to grips with the ultimate realization and finality of what I had chosen to do to my hair.
Something I know is much better for my body, but is mentally like trying to compete in the American Ninja trials when you are clearly unprepared and not anywhere near competent enough to do so, while feeling like every eye that turns to regard you is silently judging you, seeing you as something new, possibly unholy, and as a cliche.
As I also struggle with my mental health and the increased anxiety and depression. And at the same time dealing with the emotions of the racial unrest that has always been but has elevated to levels that force us all to take a hard long look at ourselves and our fellow Americans, something we haven’t been forced to do in a very long time, but is desperately needed.
For months now, I have been coming to terms with my natural hair. Learning what my real hair is actually like for the first time in 30 years. Learning slowly how to take care of it, struggling to find the right combinations to give it what it needs to be healthy; trying to figure out how best to keep it hydrated, soft, and manageable so that I don’t feel like I’m wearing sheep’s wool on my head. And desperately praying that it grows out to the length I want so that I can start rocking some of the natural hair curly styles I’ve seen and desire. But also at the same time trying to come to terms with the fact that I may never be able to do so.
So. Today I overcome one of my many fears: the fear of being photographed with my natural hair. I present to you 42 year old Jamilah Hazima Moore, rocking her natural hair and actually genuinely smiling about it. The first of, I hope, many more to come.
