so, no one ever taught me how to take care of my hair.

not my mom, not my grandmother, no one. it was always done FOR me, through tears, pain, and protest.

"You're just trying to make my hair look like a white person's!" I recall shouting at my mother once. Her expression went so dark, I had to apologize and let her finish.  I regret that I never learned how to take care of my hair on my own... because now, here I am, in a city far away from all my family, living with my guy and our beautiful little biracial daughter, and not only do I not know how to take care of my hair with all these products and chemicals and burning hot chunks of metal, but I DON'T WANT TO.

 Sure, I want to look acceptable in society, but why does that have to mean that I have to torture myself? Other women don't have to do it-- my guy doesn't have to do it. He just washes his fine, wavy hair, plops some gel on it, and wanders off to work. Why can't I do something like that?

Well, since I've been away from my family, and since I don't have many black female friends, I feel like there's no one I can turn to to ask about my hair. Or, at least that's how I felt before. Then, I sort of realized that "HEY. I can go check this shiz out online. There's probably something that can help me out there."

Initially --in fact, even when I was younger-- I wanted to get dreadlocks. My hair is thick even compared to the people in my family, and running a comb, even a wide toothed comb through it can be enough to bring me to tears after a while. So, I searched online for information about dreadlocks, and lately I've found that the more information I gather about taking care of my own hair in its natural state, the more I want to do it.

I was so happy to find the article in this site about caring for childrens' hair. I never know what to do with my daughter's hair, and I always felt bad, 'cos I love the way my daughter's hair looks when she's wearing it in a little dark fluffly halo around her head, and whenever I let her do that, my mom would always comment that she looked like her parents didn't love her-- like a neglected child... I'd combed her hair, brushed her hair, thought she looked beautiful, and here my mother was saying she looked homeless. ; _ ; This site not only gave me some new ideas for styling my baby's hair, but also made me feel less ashamed about taking her out in public when she's wearing her adorable baby 'fro.

Now, I've sort of officially decided to let my hair be natural. That new electric hot comb I bought? Thinking about selling it on ebay or something. Those petrolium products? I'll give them away, or something... Because I'm SICK of hating my hair. I shouldn't have to hate the way a natural part of me looks, just because a group of people decided that it wasn't "normal." My hair IS normal, it's MY kind of normal, and I want to embrace that and be happy about that, and not STRUGGLE with my sense of self esteem all the time.

I still want to get dreads, but it's going to be a while before I can; I don't work, and my guy, while supportive, doesn't quite understand how big a deal this is for me, since not only is he a guy, but he's also not black.

I feel so pleased to have found this site, because I just can't talk to my friends about my hair without making them feel awkward and uncomfortable, because they all seem to have nice, perfectly straight hair...

SO. In any case, I'm going to loc my hair. I hope to do it myself, but I don't know if I can do straight parts alone. I might end up having to wait to go to a salon, because I don't trust anyone around me not to mess it up. I want to finger coil my hair, and I'm not going to do the big chop.

If anyone has any tips on the kind of products I should use, or hints on how to part my hair without weird crooked lines, please feel free to leave me a message, I need it!

As a further note, my hair is still two textured, AND it's much longer on top. The back and the sides are all natural and only about the length of my ring finger, while on top, it reaches nearly to my chin {that's stretched} .

Anyway, I'm so happy to have found this site, so excited... I can feel a personal revolution coming on!