Reflective Essay: The Perception Of My Hair

A feeling of uneasiness always lingered behind me. A sense of urgency could never seem to escape my body. Do I smell good? How do my clothes look? Is my hair too much? I often asked those same three questions every day before I allowed myself to step one foot outside of the house. For ten years, my mom always platted, or two-strand twisted my hair and matched my barrettes to whatever color she wanted me to wear to school that day. Waking up this morning was the first time in ten years that I got to make that decision. Thinking about the first day of sixth grade had given me butterflies the entire summer, and I was ready to do something about it. After fifteen minutes of staring at myself in the mirror, I decided to brush my hair into a simple ponytail.

But oddly, it puts a smile on my face. The ponytail replaced the past thoughts of the heavy-handed tugs and the yelling that I had to endure for years just to get MY hair the way SHE wanted me to wear it. It replaced all the agony and echoing laughs from the other kids at school who wondered why my hair looked so “nappy” and why I wore it the same way every day. “This ponytail is replacing the past and creating a path for the future”, I told myself. I was 11 after all, practically a teenager! It took every bit of energy within me to brush my thick and kinky hair into that ponytail that I’ve longed for years to come. Finally, after 30 minutes… mission accomplished! I again asked myself those same three questions. Do I smell good? How do my clothes look? Is my hair too much? After two timid yeses and a no, I prepared myself for that 25-minute walk to my first day of middle school. I closed my eyes and told myself… QUEEN YOU CAN DO