GIVE ME A HEAD OF HAIR
Wait, don't leave, I have an actual post.
I've been curious lately. I finally bleached my hair so I could go to the school I be tutorin' at without a head cover--I have a natural hair color even if it's clearly not my natural hair color. And yes my hair is natural. Now, even though I'm totally drunk off my natural hair natural product dyed and flipped to the side mess, I still have my insecurities.
I've never had long hair before. I think this so far is probably the longest it's been, and it's approaching neck length just about uniformly now. For the kids I hadn't seen last year, they seemed a bit surprised at how short my hair is. I usually just have it afro-style and with water and shrinkage of course it looks pretty short.
"Why don't you wear your hair down and long?" the girls asked me. "Why don't you let your hair grow out?"
This...this started to bother me a little bit since the girls I tutor have rather nice, silken, long hair--two girls of color and one white girl for the record. I began to feel my insecurity coming out and I thought ruefully, well I caught one part of the beauty standard but I'll probably never attain the second.
I can't point why this made me so irate inside--am I still not comfortable with myself even after all this time? I felt more comfortable with myself when I finally stopped those atrocious perms. They're only kids, I can't exactly sit them down and chat about imposing beauty standards. I do wear my hair down sometimes when I feel like actually looking like a girl.
I just don't...I don't know. School has been giving me such grief lately I'm not sure what to think, other than I'm disappointed that having long hair will apparently make me pretty or more feminine still. It seems I can't escape..
