Coco Chanel said, “When a woman cuts her hair, she’s about to change her life.” That wasn’t exactly the case when I took a pair of clippers to my head on Independence Day 2014. I cut my hair because I was sad. There wasn’t some deep explanation like, ‘I wanted to strip myself of the baggage I’d been carrying around.’ Nah, sis was hurt. In the months leading up to my big chop, I was interested in possibly going natural, but just never fully committed to it.
Then the tidal wave of 2014 hit me. I hate to say the tidal wave was a man. Dammit. But the relationship I had with said man was a friendship. No romance was involved in the equation at all, but the man was my best friend. I could get into all the details of what happened, but it’s Saturday and I want to commit more time to telling that story than what I’m willing to give right now. The short of it is that I broke up with him. That’s an interesting choice of words for the end of a friendship, right? But that’s what it felt like. It wasn’t the first time I ended a friendship, but this was different. I experienced my first romantic heartbreak when I was a teenager, but the pain I felt after I broke up with my friend was much worse. Chile, I was listening to Luther Vandross and crying in the parking lot of my job, it was bad.
So I was at home by myself watching big chop videos when I remembered I owned a pair of clippers; I immediately got up and headed toward the bathroom. I turned on the clippers and just started shaving away. It was a dramatic scene. This is going to sound corny, but almost immediately after I shaved most of my hair off, I felt fearless and strong. You have to be crazy, brave, or both to look in the mirror and shave your own head– especially if you’re a woman. Going natural was a defining moment in my 20s. Generations of Black women have been told by society and even our own community, that our hair isn’t good enough the way God made it. It’s been a liberating and empowering experience to not be ashamed to wear my hair the way it grows out of my head. Getting to my nappy roots may have started in sadness, but it ended in strength and pride.
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