My Epically Traumatizing Hair Journey

        If I’m being honest I wasn’t sure about how to start this blog post. I like incorporating my life experiences into my blogs, but I wasn’t sure how I could possibly ever compare my life to Phoebe Robinsons. I quickly realized I can’t. So instead I’ve decided the best way to start off a post about a book about hair, is to start off with my own most memorable hair experiences. I have two that stick out the most, they were both traumatizing. Unlike Robinson’s mom, mine was not the kind of woman who sat around helping me do my hair on the weekends. Picture this, you’re five years old. It’s your second nine weeks of kindergarten (remember when those were a thing). Your teacher gives you a letter to give to one of your parents when you get home (remember when letters were a thing too). When you get home, you give the letter to your mother, only when she opens it a look of terror comes over her face. Oh no you think, am I in trouble? Your mother reassures you that no, you’re not in trouble, it’s much worse than that. The letter had the most dreaded words for any elementary school parent to read, LICE OUTBREAK! 

          You’re quickly shoved into a car and dragged to the nearest Walmart with lice shampoo. You race back home and are home put into a large white tub. I’d like to note here that the tub wasn’t actually that big but when you’re five the whole world seems huge.  I am the oldest of my siblings and the first-born child of my mother. So why she thought she knew what she was doing, and didn’t need to read the directions on the back of the bottle, is beyond me. We both learned that day that when it says ten minutes, it means ten minutes not an hour. I ended with a pretty big bald spot on the back of my head where the shampoo had chemically burned my hair off. I had to wear my hair up in a ponytail for the rest of the year so none of the other kids would notice. It was awful and I’ve never forgotten about it. I only wish I had a picture to share with you so you could laugh at my expense. 

          Naturally, this incident made me very protective of my hair. I would only get it cut about two times a year for the next six years. The only person I let touch my hair was our family friend and  hairstylist Renee. Not to be confused with Phoebe’s Reneighaaay. My Renee is not a “sassy yet smart career administrative assistant to Ted” (Robinson 170). She is an extremely patient, caring, professional hairstylist, who slowly got me to a point where I could let her do more than just cut the dead ends off of my hair. My second most memorable hair moment happened in eighth grade. This time I was thirteen years old. It was the day before our eighth-grade formal. 

   

          My friend Courtney and I were sitting on the bleachers during free time in gym class. She had brought her mothers round bamboo brush to school with her and wanted to curl my long hair with it. She started by rolling the round brush up underneath my hair. It turns out my hair didn’t like that, and the brush didn’t want to come out. She decided to fix it by rolling it up further in the opposite direction thinking it would come loose. Courtney was wrong and ten minutes later I was sitting in the nurse’s office bawling while she tried to get the brush out of my hair. My grandmother ended up picking me up early and rushing me down to Renee’s hair salon. She tried reassuring to calm down because Renee could fix it. Only when we got there we were told Renee was on vacation. The tears started rolling again and the nice little blonde lady in the back realized I was in some major distress. She worked for three hours trying to get the brush out of my hair taking it section by section. She got it down as far as she could before having to cut the brush out of my hair. It was nowhere near the length it used to be, but I wouldn’t end up with a Dora the explorer haircut. When I went to school the next day Courtney ran up and apologized, then she has the audacity to ask for the brush back because it was her moms brush and she was going to kill her if she didn’t bring it home. I immediately told her where she could shove the brush and that if she wanted it that badly she could go down to Sally’s haircuttery and dig it out of the trash. The bristles were all missing anyways so her mom wouldn’t be brushing anything with it anytime soon. As traumatic as the experience was it taught me I could look good with shorter hair and that I wouldn’t actually die if I got my hair cut more than twice a year. 

          My hair journey has definitely been a rocky one and it’s taught me some valuable lessons. I realized my hair is part of my identity, but it doesn’t have to be. I also learned the world wouldn’t stop if I changed my hair style up and ended up not liking it. It’s just hair it will grow back. A couple of years after the second incidence I ended up getting twelve inches cut off and donating it. This year I got my hair dyed for the first time ever, at twenty years old. I believe the technical term is called a balayage, but don’t quote me on that. I’m still a newbie and my hair journey is just getting started.