HAIRstory #5

Know when to let go!

I was so elated once my hair appeared "even!" Psychologically, I was reaching a plateau, a phase in my life where I was comfortable in who I was. I was beginning to balance the person I had lost and the person I was becoming. Although still rocking permed hair, I allowed my hair to blow in the wind and found styles that I thought exuded my personality and spunk. However, the hair was still limp and lifeless, lacking enthusiasm unless an outside force encouraged it to have bounce and volume.


At the end of the Spring 2007 semester, I randomly decided to end a 3 year relationship. It was a long awaited ending, but we held on because it was convenient and in some ways we were co-dependant upon each other. Despite the happiness I presented to others, internally I was crushed. Not because I wanted to be with this person, but just all the bull I had put up with and for so long. Why did I allow this person to change who I was? Why was I living a lie because others said it would work? How could I forgive and forget just because it happens to everyone? Sounds like something else I know, a perm! Hmm...the irony!

In my state of depression, my ear patches continued to show my internal turmoil. My other hair strands would grow, but my ear patches would stay in the same growth cycle - never growing past my jawline. Soon after the break-up, another random decision, I said to myself: "You know what, I've got to take matters into my own hands!" So I began cutting my ear patches. I took the square right above my ear, combed it towards my chin, smoothed out the raggedy ends and cut them suckas off, too!


Now, you may be saying: Wouldn't that take you back to having a mullet? And, that's fine because my ear patches started growing. They were crisp and clean! In June 2007, I found Mr. Wright and he didn't mind me wearing braids all the time and that's exactly what I did! So, I must apologize: I don't have any pictures of my hair from Summer 2007 going into Summer 2008. In total I wore my hair braided for a little over a year and a half, allowing my hair to breath for 3 weeks at the most. I continued the cycle of perming, and clipping my ends as well as trimming my ear patches after each professional trim.


In August 2008, a year after trimming my ear patches every time I took my braids out, I saw growth and a thickness in my ear patches that I thought would never happen! Tried and true!