I got my hair done this Saturday. It needed it. The brown had become orange, the regrowth made me look like Shakira in the horse video, and my split ends rivalled a mathematician’s fraction skills. Needless to say, as a result, my mental stability was on shaky ground. In girl world, hair is life.
I remember when I was little my mom tried to buy me an alice band to keep my three fringe hairs back. I didn’t like the idea. I fought. We tried seven different alice band types and then resorted to hard plastic, white and wide. If I had been a cool kid, it may have looked retro. I wasn’t. It was cute, but it didn’t make my three hairs budge.
Then I remember I tried to get my hair into a pony tail in boarding school. I don’t know why I bothered; I had no-one fooled. Three strands of hair are three strands of hair even if you put them in a pony tail. It didn’t get better. I welcomed teenage-ness and faced a never ending fight against oil. Oil won – I never got dreadlocks, but I may as well have.
Hair has been one of my major issues all of my life. You see, along with knobbly knees and size three feet my genetic pool has blessed me with my father’s fine hair. Which is all well and good on my father because a) he is a man and b) he no longer has it anyway. On me, however, this genetic flaw means 15 to 20 minutes of dedication every morning.
Then, as if the fine hair factor isn’t enough, my hair is also a nondescript colour. Meaning it could be blonde or it could be brown or it could be beige – nobody really knows. I spend my savings plan on highlights (not really, but kind of) and every so often I try convince everyone I’m a real blonde. Nice try.
It doesn’t matter if it’s hair or thighs, us girls are never happy with what our mama gave us. We look at the trendy girl with the afro and think “want that”. If we are skinny, we want the curves. If we are curvy, we want the skinny factor. If we are quiet and introverted, we want to be loud and the life of the party. If we are the life of the party, we feel like we should mellow out and be more respectable. And on and on it goes. Just read Glamour and you’ll see pages and pages of girl envy. It’s as if we would rather spend our lives fighting a battle against what we have been given so we can behave like someone else instead of embracing our natural gifts and focusing our energy on making them great. It makes no sense – none, negative, de nada.
Except wait… perhaps it does make sense. Imagine if there was someone or something out there which wanted to defeat you. What would they do? They would convince you that you are not good enough just as you are. They would whisper in your ear: “Your hair sucks, girl friend”.
If they were clever they would know that if they convinced you of all this stuff you would never really embrace all you were created to do and be. If they could do this, then they would win without having to start a fight. You would be resigning right from the beginning.
As I sat at my hair dresser with a thousand foils in my head and a Glamour magazine in my hand I decided it was time to change my attitude. As I stared in the mirror I decided I will declare that my hair is gorgeous – all three strands. And so am I. I will compliment and appreciate other beautiful girls, but never in a way that is envious. I will own life, make a difference, and bring my gifts to the table and weapons to the fight.
So whoever is out there whispering in my ear, you better stop. You can’t mess with this girl. I know God made me and he made me good. In fact, I like me – hair, warts and all.