My Hair Has Never Once Listened to Me (And I'm Done Pretending Otherwise)

Photo caption: Sissy and me

Look at that little girl in the photo. Big smile. Bright eyes. And hair that is already doing exactly what it wants to do. That child had not a care in the world, bless her heart. What she did not yet know was that she was locked in a lifelong negotiation with a force of nature sitting directly on top of her head. A negotiation she would lose. Every. Single. Time.

I want you to know, I tried.

I have wanted Cher's hair since approximately 1974. Long. Silky. Black. Cascading down her back like a slow waterfall of pure obedience. Cher's hair cooperated. Cher's hair went where it was told. I would sit in front of the TV watching her shimmer across the screen, and then I'd go look in the mirror at my own situation and think: we are not the same.

My hair is coarse. My hair is textured. My hair is, frankly, sovereign. It has its own zip code, its own weather system, its own opinion about every single product I have ever slapped on it in the last five decades. And its opinion is always the same: No, thank you. Try again.

The Product Graveyard

If you opened my bathroom cabinet right now, you would find the archaeological evidence of a woman in denial. There are gels. There are creams. There are serums with French names that cost more than my electric bill. There are sprays that promised me “frizz-free” for 48 hours and I want you to understand that 48 hours must have been written by someone whose hair had already surrendered, because mine read that label, laughed softly, and expanded by two inches within the hour.

I have blow-dried this hair straight. I have roller-set this hair smooth. I once read that mayonnaise was a conditioner and let's just say my kitchen smelled like a deli for a week and my hair remained unmoved.

The gel era was particularly humbling. I would apply it with the focused intention of a woman who had finally figured it out. I would smooth it down, pat the edges, nod at myself in the mirror with cautious optimism. And then, ten minutes. Ten minutes. Like clockwork, my hair would begin its resurrection. One strand at a time, rising up like little antennae, reclaiming territory, restoring the original chaos. The gel didn't tame my hair. My hair absorbed the gel and used it for fuel.

Solidarity, Sisters

Here's what I know now that I didn't know as that little girl in the photo wishing for Cher hair: I am not alone in this.

Black women and women of color across generations have waged this exact same war, not just with their strands, but with a world that told them their natural texture was the problem requiring a solution. Salons. Relaxers. Hot combs. Chemical straighteners that promised sleekness and delivered scalp burns. The message was always the same: your hair, as it is, is not enough. Make it straight. Make it smooth. Make it look like it came from somewhere else.

I fell for it. Oh, I fell hard. I was chasing Cher while my hair was busy being magnificently, defiantly itself.

The Hair Has Won

I'm in my, let's say seasoned, years now, and I am here to formally announce what my hair has known all along: it has won. It has always won. It will continue to win until one of us is no longer here, and given the evidence, I am not confident it will be the hair that goes first.

My hair is not a problem. My hair is a personality. It is big and coarse and textured and it has survived every product, every flat iron, every YouTube tutorial promising a miracle in five steps. It came out of that faded photo decades ago ready to live, and it has not stopped.

Do I still occasionally wrestle it into a bun and glare at it in the mirror? Absolutely. Do I still pick up a new gel at the store sometimes, reading the label with the quiet hope of a woman who has not fully learned her lesson? I do. I really do.

But somewhere between that little girl smiling in the photo and the woman I am now, I've started to think maybe the goal was never to tame it. Maybe the goal was to finally, finally, be as fearless as the hair.

It's been trying to teach me that the whole time.

Chaotic Ramblings is the space where I say the true thing in the almost-right words. Come back every week for more.🌀

Drop a comment, did your hair also come out of the womb with an agenda?