Transitions & Natural Hair - Um, Dreads?? and Change

Okay! I get it! The young are capricious! It's kind of like having younger siblings - you want to tell them not to do the same stupid shit you did because you know how it ends...but they simply will not learn until they experience it for themselves. Same for parents to kids. The interplay between your personal knowledge and someone else's need for personal experience can be frustrating - or beautiful.

Life happens in stages of development. There are physical stages, like puberty and old age. There are psychological stages, which lead to increased maturity. Sometimes people miss certain stages. There are all kinds of theories on what the stages are, but we know for sure that we experience different things at different ages, and the lessons we learn (should) help us continue in maturity/wisdom. If you miss a stage, you can't typically progress to any other stage after that because each stage builds on the one before.

All of this to say, I'm deep inside of a searching/questioning/exploring phase. Sometimes I feel like circumstances rocket-launched me into this phase. Mostly, I'm very aware of the choices I've made to be here.  Occasionally I question if I should have gone through this sooner, but no matter - where I am now is where I am. Honestly? I love where I am. I FEEL WILD AND FREE.

It's tough, too. I'm no longer:
-a student
-a child
-employed
-a christian
-in a relationship

And all of these labels have provided each their own false sense of security before. Now, I'm naked, unbound by any group, label, identity and WOAH, if you've been here, you know it's scary. Maybe you never made it here and you crave it. How I wish everyone gets their own chance to be stripped of all the baggage put on by family and society.

What is happening in this stage? I'm all over the place wild, changing my hair every few months (hence, no longer having dreadlocks), exploring new places, searching for meaning in a workplace, attempting to be true to my deepest passions I've known since I was a tiny kid (when I was unexposed to the heartache and bias of the world).  I'm fighting to understand my intrinsic value as a human being - the value that isn't defined by what I do/can do, what I think/believe, what I look like, etc. In part, I wrote this blog to talk about my dreadlocks.

DREADLOCKS - they were short lived this time around. I suspect I might try them again, but who really knows? They were purposeful when I had them. Remember what I wrote before? When I was inside some intense transitions, I began working on dreading my hair.  It was helpful for me to have something tangible I could control with my hands while the rest of the world was spinning out of my control.  Eventually, when the dreads were a bit more normal, I did not make enough time to maintain them at the level I wanted.  I desired to feel confident with my hair, but I didn't make the choices to reach that confidence level.  My dreadlocks got very messy, and I no longer admired myself with them.  So I took them out.  It was rapid and it was unexpected, but it was right. I made yet another change in my life, and now I'm blogging about it. Typical!

In all truthfulness, though, I'm sharing this to tell you - it's okay to change.  It's actually okay to do something different, something out of the ordinary. Also, you're allowed to return to something you left. My parents choose to believe I'm still a "Christian" or "believer" in order to make it through another day. My sister Shanna has left the door open for returning to Christianity (and I've left it open vice versa; more on my transition away from my childhood belief system in the future). I'm putting in the work in accepting the rapid unsureness of my present stage. While I don't plan on returning to anything of my past any time soon, my hair has been a safe place to practice change and transition. What a gift.

Now, I'm rocking my natural hair again, and I love it! Since I recently began exploring going natural with the rest of my body (growing out my armpit hair, eyebrow/unibrow hair and leg/toe hair), it makes sense to return my head hair to its natural state. It's like completing a puzzle. The last piece, at least for now, was saying goodbye to my dreadlocks. So many people loved them and met me for their first time when I had them.

Yet I'm shuffling the puzzle pieces all the time, all the same. Here's a quote from an empowering Ted talk about being in your 20s:

"These are the facts... We know that personality changes more during your 20s than at any other time in life, and we know that female fertility peaks at age 28, and things get tricky after age 35. So your 20s are the time to educate yourself about your body and your options."

 Honestly, it does no good to look down on millennials for their wild changes. Every adult goes through being in their 20s. Give this Ted talk a listen, no matter what age you are, and get on board with empowering 20 year olds.

What does this have anything to do with all the major shifts happening in the world right now? When you connect someone to the freedom to choose their own path and change their mind, you open doors for authentic, active change. When you quit requiring young people to appropriate their true self to religion or law, you will see good changes happen. Once again, I'm offering this small story in hopes that one less person will feel alone in their wild, shifting, changing 20s. I'm really hoping you listen to the Ted talk and feel proud to embody the stage you're in. Being in your 20s doesn't mean you have a decade to waste. It's the PRIME time to put in the work that will impact the rest of your life.  I used to tell people my age coupled with the phrase, "I'm just a baby." Now I'm closer to feeling confident when I say I'm in my early 20s. And it's tough, but I'm putting in the work. Here's to changing!!

Some days they rocked!

Bye bye dreadies.

Enjoying my natural hair again. I lost half my volume! #DoItForTheTwenties

Coming Home to My DNA - Unibrow Power

Let's FACE it...there's something different about my appearance. I grow hair smack in the middle of my face, between my eyes and above my nose. Unibrow, monobrow, Frida Kahlo, Hey Arnold, whatever you want to call it, it's a part of me. Inside of my recent transitions/chaos, I didn't spend as much time keeping up with my appearance, and one day I noticed dark hairs growing where I normally never allow them. As I sat down with tweezers and a mirror, I finally approached the thought of, "why do I alter this about myself?" At any other time, I wouldn't have asked myself this. Or, I wouldn't have addressed the question. This time, I asked the question inside of a million other questions I was asking about my life, so it had a place.

The story is simple - when I was in fourth or fifth grade, a girl in my class pointed out that I have a unibrow. I don't remember anything else about the situation, besides that we were in the hallway. Was she making fun of me? Was she being factual? Was she showing off knowledge she learned recently? Whatever the case, from that point on, I no longer had a unibrow. Since elementary school, I learned the magical art of tweezer wielding.

It doesn't sound like too much of a big deal upfront. In fact, people would compliment my hard-earned eyebrows (back when I had two...). When I began questioning how I felt about my face, however, I noticed a lot of things were packed into shaping my eyebrows - things I no longer wished to carry.  There's a joke about people with a monobrow - one of their fears is if they were ever in a coma, they'd wake up with one! My anxiety about my facial hair came with the thought that if I were ever to be trapped on an island (because everyone just imagines this kind of stuff right?) I would  be a hairy mess. Silly fear, but I was about ready to FACE it!

So what did I do?? First, as it was growing out, I told my closer companions. I wanted to avoid some awkwardness when they would see me for the first time. Next, I eventually built up courage to do an Instagram story on my unibrow. I asked people to tell me their honest opinions - and they did! What was the next logical step of action? A photoshoot of course! Here is what came of it:

 My friend Sarah was offering photoshoots to fundraise for her next big adventure, so I snagged to opportunity to be showered by her magical talent. I told her my only priority was to capture my eyebrow. (By the way, we took these photos at Mother Neff State Park! It was cold, rainy, and perfect. Be on the lookout for my next blog about the ambassador program I am a part of.)

TRUTHS ABOUT THE EYEBROW:

1. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. It's definitely counter to our eyebrow-crazy society's expectations of what beauty is. A lot of times I feel incredibly beautiful. Other times, I feel foreign to myself. It changes the dynamic of my facial features, and I'm still adjusting to the way it looks.
2. I always wonder what people are thinking (if they are thinking about it) and I'm always curious to know other's opinions. Your opinion may not sway me, but it helps me fill in (lol, eyebrow puns) the surrounding experience of my eyebrow. Some people don't like it, and they recognize this is because of our society's expectations. Some people love how goofy it is! Some people tell me I should get rid of it. Some people have said absolutely nothing as well. What about you??
3. It's still growing! The hairs spent most of my life being "killed" before they had any chance to see the light. Now that I'm allowing them to be free, they just keep coming and I'm constantly amazed at how much hair is a part of my face!

Here is a quote I snagged from Wikipedia on the unibrow:

"In both Ancient Greek and Roman cultures, unibrows were prized as beautiful, desirable features worn by the most intelligent and lusted-after women."

Heck yes. I'm definitely boosting myself here. Regardless of what is true or not, the whole point of this story I'm sharing is that I'm learning how to come home to my body as it is.  How else has this coming-home-to-me shown up? Well, I have pretty hairy legs and hairy armpits (I always let people know, I have more armpit hair in one pit than all four of my brothers' armpit hairs put together - not to put them down or anything). I've let these grow out. Truthfully, most of my family is absolutely repulsed by my hairiness, so don't feel bad if you are too. My challenge for you is to ask yourself why. Why? Why is hair, such a natural and purposeful thing, so stigmatized on women? It's more than okay to love your clean-shaven legs, arms, armpits, and other areas. I'm starting to realize, it's more than okay to love the hairs as they grow, too. Here's to growth!!!

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She's beauty and she's grace.