It’s Just Hair?

I did it.  I did something I’ve never done before…

I’ve been doing my own hair since I was about 12 years old.  Those early days were pitiful attempts I must admit. My mother did not relinquish full control of my hair to me, but she would allow me to experiment with certain styles.  Through the years, I have gained so many hair stories.  They are funny now, but trust me they were definitely not funny at the time.  When you are a self-conscious, awkward, sensitive teen the simplest things can turn your world upside down and inside out.  I want to share a few of my stories with you before I tell you what I did.

I can still recall one of my hair stories from junior high like it was yesterday.   My mom has always done a really great job with my hair (and my two sisters).  If I’m not mistaken this story happened when I got my very first roller set.  I wanted a curly hair style.  Unfortunately, (for both of us) we had not experimented with roller sets before.  I don’t remember everything about what happened.  What I do remember is my mom taking the rollers out of my hair on the morning of school.  Instead of loose flowing curls I had very tight curls all over my head.  We thought combing through the curls would loosen them up, but it didn’t.  Consequently, I essentially ended up with a very tight curly afro.  Now don’t get me wrong, if this had been a decade earlier I would have been fine.  But, this hair fiasco happened in the 80s when big hair was the norm.  To top it off, I lived in the South where Aquanet hairspray was apart of every girl’s hair arsenal.  So, hairwise (is that a word?), this was the worst possible scenario.

I think I spent an hour in the bathroom that morning (in tears, of course) trying to free myself from one of my top 5 worst hair days.  I was in junior high at the time AND I walked to school.  I remember that day being the longest 5-7 minute walk of my life.  Needless to say, I was late for class, because I had fussed with my ‘fro for so long.  My first class of the day was band – a class where you don’t get to sit in a row and just mind your own business.  I walked into class late with the meanest face any tween can give.  It’s the don’t-mess-with-me-I’m-having-a-bad-hair-day face. (Every woman has one.)  Well, all the other students in the class understand “the face”.  The best way to describe their faces when I walked into that classroom was P-I-T-Y.  No one really gave me any eye contact – out of fear, I think.  However, my wonderfully sensitive teacher (who I couldn’t remember his name or face right now if I tried) did the dumbest thing a teacher could do in a situation like this – he put all the attention on me.  He looked at me and said, “Oh, Kendra.  I see you have a new hairstyle.”  I don’t really remember anything after that because I think I may have blacked out.  The only thing I remember happening is all the tears I had been holding in came pouring out of me.

Here’s what I envisioned:

Before you feel sorry for me, I survived.  I was actually able to laugh at some point during the day (not about my hair, of course).

Here is a pic that I found that I think would best illustrate my hairstyle: (Here’s what I got)

I have another story for you tomorrow about the reason I will never look at a bottle of Sea Breeze the same way again.

I’m sharing a few hair stories this week as I lead up to my post “I did something I’ve never done before. Change – it’s the new me.”  I would love to hear your hair stories, recent or old.  If you have a blog and a pic of a bad hair day, could we see it?