Growth.

This word is how I would describe myself during my hair journey.

I really started to hate my hair in elementary school because seeing my peers with long, straight hair, I felt that my hair wasn’t pretty like theirs. That’s when the constant need for extensions was all I cared about. If my hair wasn’t done with extensions I would be upset and wouldn’t go anywhere. But I couldn’t skip school if my natural hair was out, so I would put on a hood or a hat, but it wasn’t allowed in school. I would constantly be told by staff to take my hood off and I did, but once they turned away, I would instantly put it back up because I was scared of my peers seeing my hair. I was so disappointed with myself because my mother would do my natural hair in a cute style, but I would just put a hood over it because I didn’t want others to see it.

This hatred of my natural hair would continue until COVID started. I was in the seventh grade and they had shut down my school and I started doing online schooling. My hair was constantly out and I started to like it. All the negative things I thought about it, I didn’t think about anymore. I started to want my natural hair out, but even though I liked it, I was still self-conscious about it. The constant thought that it wasn’t long enough or perfect enough always crept back in my mind.

The greatest challenge I had to face was starting my loc journey. Loc is commonly known as dreadlock, which is a hairstyle where you twist the hair together and never brush or comb it. I wanted to start my locs because I wanted to finally love my hair. I started them freshman year of high school. My hair was short and the locs looked like little worms, so I covered them with a hood the first couple of weeks. I stopped wearing the hood because I was tired of being self-conscious about them, I also realized no one really cared, so I stopped caring what it looked like.

Today, the trial and tribulation I had with myself about how I felt about my natural hair seems silly now, always wanting the extension and long hair seems pointless. I feel like locs saved my relationship with my hair and has made me feel confident enough to embrace it.