Becoming Me Naturally

Kyla Washington

September 9,2013

Instructor: Koester

Natural Beginnings

    I was always the girl who stood out. I had the big eyes, even bigger head, and the loud personality. There was one thing that always set me apart from the other girls, and that was my huge lioness mane of sandy brown hair. My hair was my pride and joy. I would sit for hours each day and allow my mother to allow my scalp and place tiny plaits all over my head. I never knew that those tiny hair folicles would cause so much growth in my life, not only physically, but mentally as well.

      My mother always had the hardest time doing my hair each day. While I loved it, she despised combing through my very coarse hair. She would always talk about how she would “relax” my hair, or put me on the creamy crack. As a young girl I didn’t know much about image. I didn’t know that to modern society it was better to have a more sleek and silky hair texture. So when my mother actually did perm my hair I was furious. I would look at my mother and grandmothers hair and see the different curly textures, and now my hair was bone straight.

    I hated having that straight hair. It always shed and could never curl up. And even worse it was such a pain to get those pesky relaxers. They left burns on my scalp and smelled awful. After a while I grew older and realized that this was the look everyone wanted. So I became more comfortable with the hair on my head. Until one day in class my best friend said she had started transitioning her hair. With a very puzzled look on my face I asked her “What’s transitioning?”. And she told me it was when you stop putting those things we all hated called relaxers in our hair and let the natural curl pattern we were born with grow out of our heads. I was amazed. I wanted to know more. I went home and told my mom and we researched it together.

    Constantly finding out new things and new terms that related to this whole “natural fad” was so fascinating to me. I mean, I was just so shocked to know that there were so many other girls out there like me who had been exposed to the creamy crack at such a young age and wanted their hair back the way it was. I started to see that it was a lot of work so I made sure I had a plan in getting my hair back. It was so funny to my mother that it was so important to me to get back my thick long hair. Some days she would just humor me and tag along in the research with me. I started my transitioning process in February 2011,  and somehow got mom to start hers also.

     I would do different hairstyles each day that wouldn’t require me to have such straight how or to put heat like flat irons on my hair every day. Some days were good and others were not so much. I wore buns and twists for  four months until I felt my hair had grown long enough for me to cut off all the end that had been touched with any relaxer. On June 29, 2011 I had cut my hair and it was the biggest change I had ever gone through.

      I noticed how I couldn’t hide and blend in with everyone else because I literally had less than two inches of hair. I had no confidence at first. I never took pictures. I never wanted to go anywhere. My mother didn’t understand why I was being this way when it was my decision in the first place to cut off my hair. It took so long for me to adjust to my new look. But as I was adjusting I researched so many ways for faster hair growth.

        Overtime my hair began to grow at a more rapid rate. I started to see it and not only did I see it, others would and compliment me. I started to gain more confidence by the day. I was finally starting to see the reason why I went natural in the first place. My hair was thickening and actually reverting back to the lioness like mane that I once so loved. Two years had passes since I had cut off all of my relaxed ends and my hair now had actually grown to a length where it was almost touching the top of my bra strap. I was beyond elated.

    My friends and family saw my happiness and began to ask me what I had done to my hair to get it to grow and be this thick. I was so shocked because they were asking me for advice about hair. I didn’t realize how inspiring my hair journey was to others. I would see them wearing their transitional hair styles and doing their big chops. But, whenever anyone else asks me what I have done to my hair and why I’m not on the creamy crack anymore I just smile and say “I just had to go back to my natural Beginnings.”