Untangling the History of My Hair
ESSAY: Reflecting on women facing societal pressures to stay the same when yearning to make an unconventional change
Welcome to Living Lately! A newsletter about a late bloomer processing a death and building a life.
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From a child to my last few years of high school, I was mommy’s little doll.
Matching bows and barrettes on shiny, taught hair. Twisted in gentle, springy, soft twists and secured in place.
Forever and ever, amen.
At first, there were no thoughts in my head that didn’t pertain to books, toys, video games, and homework. But eventually, you come to an age where you’re no longer wanting to hold mommy’s hand when crossing the street. Instead, you’re running toward the nearest Hot Topic to buy a heavily studded belt.
Or low-rise jeans, or short shorts, or to beg your mom for, “Just one tiny green streak in my hair, pleeeeeease!”
Coming into your own through clothing is one thing, but I soon learned that attempting to unravel my hair from my mom’s tight grip would be the catalyst for change I truly desired.
And would also start an all-out war.
Resenting my hair began around the time I became a teenager, and that resentment took the shape of a shiny slicked-back bun I’d wear for nearly seven years straight.
Every morning, my mom would redo that bun. Big, cold, scoops of gel saturating the top of my head. Drying into a helmet as firm as a woven basket.
I always felt like I’d just emerged from the deep end of a pool, but unlike the fluidity of water, that gel was viscous. Reminding me of its presence all day long. And even though it’d eventually warm up to my body temperature, it still stayed destructive–both physically and mentally.
Mom tested this slapped-back style a few times earlier when I was in grade school. Including a time when I had won a poster-coloring contest hosted by the local fire department. My dad has a home movie from that day, and captured my favorite firefighter friend affectionately patting the top of my head before wiping his hand across his pants when I wasn’t looking.
When going to the movies with my high school boyfriend, he’d sometimes place his cheek on top of my head. But when he’d peel away, I could hear him detaching his face from my hair. It sounded like he was slowly pulling a sturdy postal sticker off a package.
The gel would strip the shiny coat of paint off my favorite sunglasses, peeling where my hairline met behind my ears. And that bun was always placed in the same spot: causing headaches and sitting too high for me to place my head back comfortably in the car.
More and more, the hair on top of my head didn’t feel like mine; I wasn’t enjoying it, or in control of it.
But for most of my life, the health of my hair was one of my mom’s biggest focuses. She felt it was her duty to maintain its length, thickness, and shine. To do this meant tucking my hair away, high on its shelf so no one would break it. Including me.
“The women sitting next to me in the salon kept ‘oohing’ and ‘aahing’ over your hair!” my mom proudly told me once we had gotten in the car after spending a whole Saturday at the salon getting my hair straightened. “They said they wished they had hair like yours.”
A little hint of pride bloomed in me hearing the compliments, but as I sat back in the seat I realized I was hyperfocused on making sure my freshly-pressed hair wasn’t handled too much, smashed behind my back, or bent under the seatbelt.
I couldn’t maintain this.
The freed strands would fly everywhere in the wind: into my lipgloss, into the sauces on my plate… I’d have to preciously move it from over my shoulders so it wouldn’t get smashed under the straps of my backpack going from class to class. It was anxiety-inducing to have to always think about preserving my hair.
But just like with anything new, there comes a time when it’s no longer handled with kid gloves. Whether straightened or in braids I’d eventually end up pulling it back into a ponytail to get it out of my face.
But to mom, my hair helped me look as beautiful as she knew I could be when I’d “put in the effort.” And commentary throughout my life proved that to her.
Once, my grandma told my mom that my great aunt kept doubting that my hair was real in a high school graduation photo she received in the mail. In the picture my hair was straight, shiny, and past my shoulders.
And during my freshman year of high school, peers would start conversations with me by asking if I was mixed.
I don’t know if my mom took any sort of pride in those situations, and I don’t want to assume. But back then and even now I realize she projected a lot of actions, behaviors, and looks that just weren’t for me.
My hair felt like it was some collector’s item meant to be for show and tell; what fun is it to only be allowed to look at something meant to be enjoyed?
Who were we trying to impress?
By college, I’d had enough.
In the small apartment my family and I used to live in while I commuted to university, I remember trying to quietly sneak to the only bathroom next to my parent’s room so I could wash my hair in the shower for the first time. Before that moment, it would always be done in a salon washing bowl in my grandma’s basement, or in the kitchen sink by my mom.
She feared I’d, “tangle and break” my hair. But around this time, the natural hair movement had begun online and I’d become curious about what my hair actually looked like when it was free from its bun and intentionally taken care of from root to tip. What did my curl pattern look like? How does my hair sit? Can I do new styles with it by myself? I was determined to find out.
The multiple yelling matches with my mom are a blur to me now. I don’t even remember how I finally got her to cave enough to let me try taking care of my own hair, but I did. On Facebook, I have pictures of the fuzzy experimental halo I had during a college event or two.
Even so, to go from the shiny, slicked-back styles my mom had me wear since birth to the playful mess I made on top of my head was agonizing for her.
She squirmed in her seat when the doctor she’d known for decades met me for the first time. She made sure I noticed that her doctor hardly said two words to me, and definitely didn’t compliment my hair.
I recently remembered a time when I was attempting to express my style more outwardly in either high school or college, and mom made it known that I used to get so many compliments on my hair and outfits because she used to be in charge of those things.
Hitting adolescence meant hopping on Tumblr to vent my life’s mantra I believed in my bones: I’m just a blank canvas that everyone else gets to paint on except me.
And I know, unfortunately, that I’m not alone when it comes to pushback from loved ones about bodily autonomy.
“….I decided to stop spending money on upkeep so I just shaved it into a very short buzzcut. Judging by everyones reactions at home I may as well have committed the greatest sin known to man. One of my friends actually started tearing up to cry because she was upset on my behalf even though I said I wanted to shave it, did shave it, loved having it shaved.”
While searching for similar stories to mine to support this essay, I instead found so many other ways people encountered friction when it came to hair. From what cut and/or curly hair symbolizes in black, and Indian communities, to mothers who prioritize commenting on your hair before anything else…
More pieces and forums on why women decide to do drastic cuts and colors after breakups and the psychology behind it, how short hair is perceived on women versus long hair, and even vents on Reddit about hating to be expected to have long hair (and rants about hating hair maintenance in the Black community and whether that’s self-hate or super relatable, but that’s a whole other subject).
And unsurprisingly, I found the bodymod subreddit shared anecdotes from people who felt more like themselves through body modifications, even if it wasn’t deemed acceptable.
“I was raised in a strict, Christian, and homeschooled family. It was a huge move for me to get my lobes pierced, even though I was moved out and fully an adult. Each piece I get is something that I want to get and allow myself to do, and a reminder to myself that I get to decide what happens to me” one Redditor shared in a thread.
Another Redditor stated how distressing it is knowing they don’t look the way they want to, despite having a clear image of their ideal self. And something tells me that’s not a foreign feeling for most people who feel their outward expression doesn’t fit who they truly are.
What makes you feel confident in your skin?
And how do you find it if you’re constantly being bombarded by people telling you how you should and shouldn’t show up in the world?
It’s not the end of the world to conform, even if done temporarily. But it tends to eat away at you.
In the book, The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self, Martha Beck viscerally explains how it feels to mold yourself unnaturally, desperate to keep the peace:
“Many of us might use the word love to describe the kind of devotion spiders feel for flies. Spiders genuinely love flies (the way they taste, the way they crunch). They express that love by wrapping up any fly they can catch and keeping it close, slurping out its life force bit by bit. I’ve had many clients whose parents, friends, or lovers treated them this way. I call it “spider love,” though of course it’s really not love at all; it’s a predator”
― Martha Beck, The Way of Integrity: Finding the path to your true self
In some situations, there comes a time when you can no longer force yourself to hold up a facade. A threshold is reached, and you understand that a decision needs to be made.
I started slow on that front, secretly getting my dad to help shave the nape of my neck while my hair was in braids.
When my mom finally discovered it, the “damage” (and scolding) had already been done. I felt braver and soon after, one of my biggest freedoms followed! Along with my nape, my sides were shaved down and I cut my actual hair into a more manageable length for me and my braids.
The next shortest cut I ever did was during the pandemic. I got sick of my hair being a matted ball on top of my head, and just dealing with it period. So after watching a handful of YouTube videos on how to cut curly hair into a short style, I did it myself.
The cuts got shorter and shorter; I can’t recall my mom making any more comments about my hair, and I felt so confident with the short style!
But eventually, every part of me became numb as more and more of my focus turned to my mom.
The last three months of 2022 were the most intense months of my life. Of mom’s too.
And then abruptly, she was gone.
Months after losing her, I didn’t care at all about being alive, let alone what clothes and hair felt the most, “me.”
I felt overwhelmed and teary the first time our shrunken family ran into a Kohl’s to look for funeral clothes and nicer coats because I had never gone to Kohl’s without mom before. It had been years since I’d even shopped for clothes for myself.
Eventually, we got through it, and as life stilled into its new normal I became curious:
Why do people care what they look like out in public?
My therapist later told me that, naturally, I was experiencing some depression. But at the time I truly couldn’t conceptualize why people wanted to wear certain outfits, get their hair done a certain way, or put on makeup.
I wanted to want that too, but didn’t know where to start. I couldn’t visualize an “ideal” way I desired to look.
But during the summer of 2023, I got a new barber. She took her time cutting my hair with tender precision until she spun me around to face the mirror.
And I felt it! This, was so me!
As the summer began to wind down, I went to the BMV to take my driving test, and passed!
After the camera flashed for my new ID photo, one of the women working behind the counter beside me said that my haircut was pretty, and really suited me.
I grinned at her and told her thank you. I’m sure she understood she did a nice thing by complimenting a stranger, but she has no clue how that compliment solidified that the choices I make for myself are okay.
Wonderful, in fact.
And that I can trust myself.
So thank you, BMV worker. For sharing your thoughts.
You’ll never know how helpful they’ve been for a young woman who’s spent over a year trying to find herself again.
P.S. - Paid subscribers have access to me narrating this essay if they’d like to listen to it on the go, or get a bit more human connection by hearing the writer read to them. You can listen now, or upgrade to paid to listen as soon as possible (and help support a writer and creative continue to give her work her undivided attention). Regardless, thank you SO much for your time.
I loved reading this piece and that it included a lot of photos. You looked lovely in every photo and I was delighted to read that eventually you took ownership of your hair and developed a style that is your own (the buzz cut looks amazing!). I am also really sorry to hear that you lost your mother in 2022. By sharing the history of your hair you have given us, readers like myself, a personal, complex, and honest history of your life. I was honored to read it.