Just For Me
By Lauren Brooks
Today, my coworker/one of my close friends told me my hair looked fantastic. “Thanks,” I replied. “I didn’t do anything different to it.” And then I caught myself. Why couldn’t I have just said “thank you” and gone on with my day?
One of my earliest memories of my hair is in living in Florida and my mom taking the afternoon to relax my hair with the product, Just for Me. There was a cassette tape that came with directions and/or a story (that part is a little fuzzy), so I’d sit on a dining room chair, while she put the relaxer on my hair.
I’m bi-racial. My dad is black, and my mom is white (you can read about that in the links). We lived in a predominately white community and didn’t live near my extended family, so I wasn’t exposed to many people who looked like me. My dad has typical 4C African American hair. My mom has thick, coarse, fluffy white hair. My brother and I were blessed to get a combination of what I mentioned above and let me tell you—it has a life of its own.
I knew I was different, but it didn’t settle in until much later—like middle school or maybe even the beginning of high school. I was a tomboy who liked pretty things. I grew up playing outside with the neighbor boys but also wanted my mom to do my hair for church every week. More often than not, my hair was in a ponytail. Sometimes my mom would braid my hair in the summer when I would spend every day, all day at the pool. It was a mess and I had a lot of it.
At sleepovers, no one would do my hair and I just accepted it was because my hair was different, and no one knew how to do it. Best believe, I was still a part of the fun, by doing everyone else’s hair because my mom had taught me to braid.
As I got older, I wanted to do my own hair and I wish my mom would’ve refused. I can look back on photos and wonder what was going through both of our minds. My hair just always had a sort of volume that I could never figure out how to tame, but I straightened every piece of my hair every day. Occasionally, I would wear my hair curly and my friends would squeal about how “cute” my hair was. I didn’t want to be cute. I wasn’t a little kid anymore, so I continued to get my hair relaxed and straighten my hair.
I spent a year abroad in Argentina and that’s when I let my hair go. I wore it curly more often, mostly because it was summer the entire time I lived there, and why fight the humidity? I think my hair was the healthiest there and I always look back on pictures now and wonder if I could get back to a place like that.
I’ve gone blonde a couple times and I can honestly say, I feel more myself when I’m blonde. At one point I had to get all the blonde cut out because I wasn’t taking good care of my hair. I cried when I got home—my hair hadn’t been that short since 7th grade. I also had braces, but that’s another story. It was just an interesting part of my adult life—I wasn’t expecting to grieve the loss of my hair. I was talking to a guy friend of mine and he asked me how much of my identity was wrapped up in my hair. Talk about a gut punch.
The bigger part of this is that I’ve felt something about my hair for years. I think I’m coming out on the other side of it, but I still struggle with it.
Over the last few years, the natural movement has come like a tidal wave. Black women all over the world are owning their natural hair texture. More and more products for textured hair can be found at Ulta, Target, and other places. It’s empowering.
I still straighten my hair, having given up relaxing my hair 10+ years ago. But I still feel a certain amount of shame for wearing my hair straight. This last summer, I attempted to step into something different and wear my hair curly more often. I tried and tried and tried, but I just didn’t have the patience or confidence to keep it up.
The stylist I used to go to in Chattanooga, posted recently on her social media that we need to stop shaming black women for the way they wear their hair. It’s their journey. This resonated deeply with me and goes back to this identity thought.
Of course, my hair is part of my identity. It makes up a part of who I am—unique and a lot. I don’t have to let it define me, which I have definitely let happen before. But it’s unrealistic to assume that it’s just hair. Maybe to some people it is, but I have a hunch, most girls feel some type of way about their hair.
I’ve now hit 30 years old and I’m still figuring out my hair situation. I still wrap my hair at night and even let other people see me when I travel with friends. I am still on the hunt for the perfect combination of hair products. I still love to swim. And I still choose sleep over taking time to do my hair in the morning.
I’m still figuring out how I can be confident in my identity with my hair, whether it’s blonde or brown, curly or straight, messy or just fed up. But at the end of the day, I love my hair because it’s me and it’s mine.
Lauren is a life changing woman, a catalyst for igniting lyrical worth. An ISFJ and Enneagram 4, she has a heart for connection and storytelling. In her free time, you can find her binge watching/listening the latest true crime documentaries/podcasts, serving as the music director of a monthly Friday night service at her church, or working on her side hustle as a professional napper. Read more of her musings here.