my quest for the perfect 'fro

so i took by braids down, and am rockin' rough and stuff with my afro puffs (dude, yall remember that song?) it took about 18 hours to take them down. i actually missed church last sunday cause it turned into a weekend affair. lol i was so tired monday morning! and after sunday lunch and cat and pam's, pam and i went to walmart and bought hair products galore. before i go on, i must remind you that i decided to not put a chemical straightener in my hair back in feb. '05. so i'm still strong a year later. yay! when i was kickin' it with hanne and marise in spain, i almost gave in. lol i went into this one shop and asked if they did braids (and they didn't). then i asked if they gave relaxers. this cute little spanish lady came up to me and said (in spanish, of course), "please don't do that to your hair. promise me. it's so bad for your hair." i told hanne and marise what she said, and we just cracked up at this lady being so concerned about my hair.
anyhoo, back to the present. so pam and i bought all this conditioning, moisturizing goops and antifrizz gels so i can get cute natural curls. i washed my hair after i took out the braids. now, i have never, ever had this happen, but i ended up with these huge matted clumps of hair like dreads on the top of my head! freaked me out. pam spent the better part of 8 hours combing that mess out! i've never been one to be tenderheaded, but man oh man! i fell asleep so i wouldn't feel the pain (aww). i woke up at 2 am and she was finished. i looked at myself and cried. oh how i hated my kinky hair! i've had relaxers for as far as i can remember. i've never know my hair any other way than chemically straightened.
and i had to drag my butt to work in less than 6 hours!
i slapped it back into a very short ponytail, said bye to my hoarse roommate, stepped outside to walk to work, and promptly began crying. it was so sad..i'm glad no one saw me!
i read this book a few weeks back about body image. it talked about all women, and how asian women aren't small enough and latina women aren't big enough and white women aren't skinny enough. the black girl's plight is her hair isn't nice enough. a girl rocking naturally kinky hair is frowned upon. i can't complain too much...in all fairness, i have really nice hair. it's curly, to be sure, but it's very soft and "napless" (lol you know what i mean!), something i know not a lot of black girls are blessed with. but it's not beautiful and straight and shiny and light. lol. geez don't we need a paradigm shift??
but i think i've arrived. lol. a solid week later, with my hair still rockin' the puffs, i absentmindedly picked off strands of hair from my tigger sweatshirt. most were light brown wavy long leanne pieces. but one was a tightly curled, dark dark brown, shiny shanka piece. and i held it in my hand and said, "now, that's very good."




(okay, okay, okay, okay. actually, i said "that's very pretty." but i'm trying to play up the fact what God's been doing in me. ya know.)