Never-ending Hair Journey

My own hair journey started out with little thought or planning. Or maybe it's because I wasn't very vain in the first place, so I wasn't too worried about what my hair was looking like. Either way, my decision to transition wasn't life-changing or noteworthy. I never had super long hair to begin with so it wasn't significant enough to go making a YouTube video about, or even worth some super long blog post about it.

 

Before I started transitioning, I noticed that a lot of my friends had been transitioning for a while and were just starting to show off their natural hair.  I thought their hair was absolutely gorgeous.  And I thought my own thinned-out, relaxed hair was not too cute.  Especially given that I was still recovering from hair loss as a result of multiple bad chemical burns, my hair looked a hot mess, to put it simply.

 

At the turn of the new year, after experimenting with cutting my own hair to see what it would feel like--to see if I was one of those girls who feels so attached to her hair that she would be devastated to cut it--I finally decided it would be in the best interest of my hair to go natural.  Of course, I went and got a relaxer a week later to please my mother, since she hated the idea of going natural and I myself wasn't firm enough in my conviction to stand up to her and avoid a perm.  However, after that last relaxer, I finally made up my mind for sure that I never wanted to relax my hair again.

 

Okay, so here's the actual transitioning story:

 

I transitioned for 9 months--January to October.  I had no technique to it.  I just got my hair done when my mom started complaining that I looked a mess and had something important coming up.  Given the time period, those special events were my high school graduation party and going away to college, so in between those events, I didn't really try too hard to manage my hair and treat all special and stuff like most naturals and transitioners try to do.  Toward the end of October, when taking out a set of braids, on a whim I just decided to big chop. I knew my mom would kill me if I did it at home, so while away at school I just did it.  And it felt so liberating!

 

I cut my processed hair off, but it doesn't end there!  I'll return tomorrow with part 2 of my never-ending hair journey.

--JoAnn