This first blog is a result of many different occurrences in the past few months. First, There are many people who I have not been in touch with lately and some that are in touch with me have commented about the fact that I have not blogged on Myspace in some time. Lastly, one of my church members told me yesterday that 2008 has really been a year of transitions for me. New hair style, new job, new apartment, new friendships and new dating opportunities.
So I wanted to take this space to just explain one of the largest transitions I have had this year and explain it's connection to some of the other transitions I have had.So of course I am talking about my locks. I had grown my hair for more than two years and I was extremely proud of it.
As someone told me "Your hair has become your trademark" (no offense Kevin). And it had become a huge part of me. But I began to really consider a few things in regards to my hair in the spring of this year. I looked back and realized this hair had been with me through some really tough and painful periods in my life. It was connected to a person I wasn't sure I wanted to be anymore. This hair was connected to a person who was wounded by relationships hurt by situations. So let me begin first by giving you some back story.
I began growing my hair in the Fall of 2005. The last full hair cut I had had was in September 2005 in preparation for a trip to Atlanta with my then boyfriend and his best friend. I had always wanted locks and I tried to grow them a few times in the past, but I just couldn't get through what is sometimes called the "Ugly Phase". This is the time period after you first get twists before your hair actually locks up. So in late 2005 I was determined. My hair began to grow and I had a short curly afro through the end of 2005.
So I'm going to share some things throughout this blog that will shed some light on why my hair was eventually cut at the beginning of June. So with that said in January of 2006 after four and half years off and on Jarriet and I broke up. We had been through a lot of hurt pain tears and good times, but at that time in that moment I felt the time for us to really end had arrived. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done but it also was a great relief. In the midst of all of that I still grew my hair and at the beginning of February I had my hair twisted for the first time.
I was very particular about my hair from the beginning because I wanted my hair to look professional and neat at all times. I had seen people with locks that looked dirty and had a smell. I didn't want that EVER. So I was a hairdressers nightmare in those early weeks. I would make her redo it sometimes if I wasn't happy with it.
So a month after getting my hair twisted I met someone very special who I would soon find out would change my life. We had known each other for some time and to be honest during that time that we knew each other he was definitely not on my list of favorite people by any means. But something happened when we connected again. The time was right and we fell for each other and fell hard in about a month. In the midst of our courtship my hair was still growing.
He and I started dating and I got to to April when he began interviewing for positions outside of Omaha. At first he was hoping to work for Darmouth in New Hampshire and I was on board to go too and just transfer schools since I was STILL in college. Then his plans changed with a phone call and now Seattle University was on the radar. With the change something held me back and I just couldn't agree to move to Seattle with him. After an interview process he was offered a position at Seattle University and was set to move on July 15th. He and I decided we would date until he left and then we would break up. I would stay in Omaha and he would move to Seattle to start a new life without me. But in spite of our best laid plans something happened that neither one of us expected......we fell in love. Suddenly I couldn't allow him to leave without me and I decided to move as well. In the midst of all of this my locks were still growing.
My boyfriend and I decided he would move first and I would stay in Omaha to finish my semester in college then, I would move to Seattle in December and finish my final two classes online. So early in July I was not happy with the direction my locks were taking and I decided to find a new locktician. A woman at our church had gorgeous locks and she referred a woman to me. I needed my hair to look really good because he and I were going to Seattle to find an apartment that he would move into first and I would then move into when I moved in December. I was also going to check out University of Washington's School of Social work because at that time I was considering being a social worker. I needed my hair to look better. So I went to the new locktician and it turned out to be a friend of my cousin Anthony, Ken. He took one look at my hair and told me my locks had been started incorrectly and they would need to be completely redone.
After hours upon hours of work I had new twists that looked much neater and nicer and were exactly what I had been looking for all along. These twists would become the locks that were admired by so many people for the next two years.
So to fast forward in the story my boyfriend moved to Seattle in July of 06 with the plan being for me to move in December of that year. I went on through my long distance relationship through many ups and downs and changes with my hair growing the entire time.
Shortly after my boyfriend moved I began to maintain my own locks. It was always a very relaxing experience for me during this time period because it gave me time to think and plan things that were to come. A strange sense of closeness with my locks came from me maintaining them myself and no longer depending on a hair dresser. I also began receiving compliments on how neat they were that fall.
Over that time period My boyfriend and I existed in a long distance relationship where I would travel back and forth between Omaha and Seattle almost monthly to see him and to job search. In October of that year after a few interviews I was hired on by Lifelong AIDS Alliance. I was excited to continue to work in the HIV field but in a different capacity at Lifelong as opposed to the Nebraska AIDS Project where I worked in Nebraska. During that time my relationship had a lot of ups and downs that I really didn't speak to anyone about. Serious issues came to the surface that we chose to sweep under the rug for what we considered to be the sake of the relationship. Through all of this my hair is still growing.
In December of 06 I made the jump and moved to Seattle to begin working at Lifelong AIDS Alliance. I had a sense of fear and anticipation flowing through me as I made that move. I wasn't sure what tomorrow would bring but with that I had reached a point where I had to trust in God that tomorrow would take care of itself. What I also sensed at the time but did not want to admit were the problems just below the surface that he and I would have to deal with once we moved in together.
My partner and I moved in together that December and on New Year's Eve we were engaged to be married. We soon found ourselves dealing with a lot of different issues that we would find out later had always been under the surface. He and I had a lot of good times but for many reasons some wrongs on my part and some wrongs on his something in me died in relation to him and I no longer felt the same. I had loved him at this point for over a year. He was enough man for me to make me pack up my entire life and move 2700 miles to a city where I didn't know anyone but him. We had done great things together and seemed like the "Dream" couple. But I was not ready for everything we had and everything we were preparing for i.e a commitment ceremony, children and merging our lives completely. In May of 2007 we parted ways. And through all of this my hair still grew.
I spent the Summer and Fall of 2007 dating various people. I did a lot of dating and had sex with a lot of different guys. I was single and I was mingling. I'm not ashamed because I feel we look at dating and sex as something we should be ashamed of. People have sex everyday who cares. My Hair is still growing.
In the Winter of 2008 I reconnected with an acquaintance I had known from the Omaha area. He and I began speaking and found we had a lot of things in common and an attraction for each other. He seemed to be everything I had been searching for and I really wanted to give him a chance. The problem was...He lived in Michigan. I couldn't seem to shake the fact that I had said for some time that I would not be in another long distance relationship. But I also could not shake the fact that he was on my mind all the time. So we decided to try a relationship and we lasted through most of the Spring and into the summer. The relationship seemed too good to be true but I truly was not ready for it and I could not get rid of my negative feelings about long distance relationships. Those close to me would say some of my actions during this period proved this as well. By summer things were getting more difficult and I decided it was time for me to move on. It was hard but looking back I was happy with my decision.
In the Summer of 2008 I took a look at my life and decided I needed a fresh start and a new beginning. I began to think back over the two and a half years since I grew my hair and I found that I was in a transitional period. I was looking at my current life and thinking about my future more than ever. I decided I needed to get out of debt and start trying to build healthy relationships and not just fly by night sex buddies. All of these things I wanted I felt I could not successfully do with my hair. As I thought back over 2 years I realized my hair had been their the entire time. The energy of every bad decision was symbollically still with me. The energy of every bad situation was symbollically still with me. I had prayed about my situations and the things I had gone through but I was still carrying them all in my hair. People in Seattle knew me because of my hair a lot of times. I had been described as "The guy with the dreads" when people forgot my name. For many people and myself my hair was my identity, but I didn't want to continue to carry three relationships of my past into my future through my hair. I didn't want to carry some of the things I had done in the past into my future with my hair. It was time for me to grow up and move on because as India.Arie said "I am not my hair."
So early on a Saturday Morning in June of 2008 I walked into my bathroom in my studio apartment on 7th Ave and I said to my own reflection in the mirror "It's time to let it all go forever." The hurt and the pain that I had released internally was still holding on to me in my hair. I picked up the scissors off the counter and I began to cut off my locks one by one. As I cut I kept thinking I was making a bad decision because of all of my hard work for the past 2 years. But I continued doing what I knew was the right thing for me to do. I cut all of my locks off that Saturday down to a short afro and then I went to a barber shop and had a professional do the rest.
A funny thing happened. After I cut my hair so many people came up to me and said "You look so much younger" There were people who loved my locks but felt that for some reason in my face I just looked better as well. The weight of my hair was showing all over me. The weight of what the hair was still carrying was actually showing on my face. After the cut and now even since the cut I have felt better about some things in my past that I know I had released and let go but were still there in some way because of my hair. So now I leave you with India.Arie and a picture of the me that I now want to be.
-Love A.M.M.A
Popout
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment