Ever since I could remember, I have always had gorgeous hair. It was long and thick and reasonably healthy, and people around me would stop to admire it, especially when it was nicely styled from a fresh blow-dry. I felt on top of the world. My hair is one of the things I have inherited from my dad. He has lovely hair, and I am always so proud to tell people, “I have my dad’s hair”. I used to love showing off my hair, flowing in all its glory.
I grew my hair out until high school. It, however, became quite long and thick to the point I didn’t know what to do with it. When I was about 19 years old, a little devil got inside my head and told me it would be easier to manage my hair if I got a hair relaxer. I remember my mother begging me not to do it. She desperately tried to talk me out of it, but I wouldn’t hear any of it.
I had convinced myself that a relaxer was the only way to tame my mane that had gotten a bit out of control. We didn’t have YouTube then, and I had nobody to guide me on how to take care of my curls and what products to use. I would constantly get headaches trying to figure out what to do with my hair when it wasn’t braided.
My mother finally bowed out when she saw how relentless I was to get my hair relaxed. She couldn’t bear taking me to the salon herself, so I went alone feeling so proud, thinking how amazed she would be of the outcome. One cold Saturday morning, I walked into that hair salon across the road from our house and got my hair relaxed . That fateful Saturday however, became etched in my memory as the day I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.
I will never forget how I felt when the stylist removed the rollers from my hair, and I saw my relaxed hair in the mirror for the first time. My head, where my curls used to rest, looked flat as a pancake; you could see my scalp. I instantly regretted it, but it was too late to change my mind. I hated my new hair so much. It was so straight and looked so lifeless I couldn’t recognize the person looking back at me. That was the day my love-hate relationship with my hair began.
I hated the maintenance needs and costs that came with relaxed hair. Every two months, I had to go to the salon to deal with hair growth that looked completely different from my relaxed hair. I couldn’t maintain any hairstyle as my hair was too soft to manage. What had I done? I should have listened to my mum, but my pride wouldn’t let me agree to this.
My hair suffered so much within the years that followed. Substandard relaxers were in the market then, and between them and trying to experiment with different stylists, my hair started to shed a lot. Within three years, I experienced so much hair loss that strangers would approach me to tell me about products I should try that would help me deal with the hair loss I was experiencing.
I got so stressed to the point I couldn’t bear looking at my hair in the mirror. I had made such a huge mistake, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. Undoing my braids would give me sleepless nights because I couldn’t bear the thought and sight of open hair.
Accepting my hair was such a struggle for me until one cold morning in March 2017, when I finally decided to let it go. My husband had gotten a job offer in Cambodia in South East Asia, and since it was an accompanied position, our son and I would be moving there with him. It was then that I made the difficult decision to do the big chop. It felt good to have such a big change coincide with the big move we were about to make. It had been a difficult journey, but it was finally time to break free from the relaxer.
I can’t even begin to explain the feeling I had watching those limp strands of hair fall to the floor. It’s like they all went with small pieces of sadness and emptiness I had kept inside my heart since that day I relaxed my hair. I know how melodramatic that sounds but I am not even ashamed of it. It’s only then that I understood how sad I had been because of my hair and that I should have done something about it sooner. I slowly started loving my hair but it never fully recovered from the shedding. Even after going natural, my hair was still giving me sleepless nights because I still didn’t like how it looked. It was still quite thin.
The tipping point came one afternoon however when I visited a trichologist who informed me she had a solution for me after looking at my hair. She apparently could cure the adverse thinning and shedding with a procedure that would cost Ksh. 32,000. That was when I realized how out of hand I had allowed this hair situation to get. I smiled and told her I would get back to her and went laughing at myself all the way home, thinking, “no, madam, it is never that serious.”
I called myself for a small meeting and asked myself if this was where I had allowed my hair issues to lead me. With everything currently going on in our world, had I reached a point of spending all that money to fix hair? I spent the rest of the day going through my old journals and realized just how much time I had spent in my life mourning my beautiful hair, and I almost slapped myself. I had allowed a trivial situation to rule my life so much that I had become a slave to it.
This hair issue got me thinking about how easy it is to allow ourselves to get caught up with minor matters and turn them into significant problems that cause us sleepless nights. My hair is honestly not that bad. It just needed the right products and patience to grow healthy and strong.
It also made me realize that having a positive mindset when things don’t go the way we want helps us break free from the bondage of seeking perfection. The perfect hair does not exist. Neither does the ideal body or flawless face. I would have spent my whole life seeking perfection, trying to get back what I lost and almost spending lots of money while at it, for nothing.
I love my hair now. We have come a long way and still have a long way to go, but I love it with all its beautiful glory. I smile at it every day when I look at myself in the mirror. I constantly tell myself how gorgeous my hair has become. I also love it by giving it good products to help it thrive. We have come a long way, and I am excited to see how well it will keep growing.
Going back natural was the best decision I have ever made for my hair. It has not fully healed from the shedding, especially after giving birth. however, I still love it regardless. I lost so many years of my life seeking perfection over something that did not matter, and I promised myself I would not do that to myself again.
After all, it’s just hair.
Originally published at https://musingsbyclaris.blogspot.com on December 10, 2021.
