The Promised Land
I think it’s around this stage when we begin to wonder whether there’s an end to the whole hair journey. Learning to roll with the punches of single strand knots and losing bobby pins* in a mass of twisted out twists becomes the norm. Weekly hair routines are just a part of life.
At that stage, I had even given in to the time necessary to properly detangle and deep condition. Reality had beaten me into submission and I gave up on the fanciful idea that I could somehow single-handedly create an effective method that only took ten minutes.
When your hair is thriving, you know how to handle it, you’re no longer afraid of humidity and things are good, it can cause panic. Even though all the struggle was to get to that point, the manifestation of it made me think about whether it would stay the way it was or whether some new, unforeseen challenge lay ahead of me.
Could there really be a promised land? Do hair journeys come to an end? And if so, what would that end mean, exactly?
I had visions of being able to flat ironing my hair on a whim, skipping deep conditioning* sessions and the like. The months and months and months of restrictive styling would come to an end and I would be able to reap the benefits of those hard earned healthy inches of hair. Right?
For a few minutes, I was overjoyed. That quickly subsided. There was a feeling of disappointment. It felt very anti-climactic. For all the work that goes into maintaining healthy, thriving natural hair, we hope for a little more than an uneventful end.
Will Your Hair Journey Ever End?
Most people go out on a limb and try some kamikaze style hair straightening or hair coloring or whatever else is out there.
What then happens, is the dreaded setback. Once the setback occurs, they spend the next chunk of their time recovering from the setback. This is a diversion of sorts that keeps you on the journey, plugging away toward the promised land.
That leaves us with the question: Is there an end to the natural hair journey and what is it?
A week from today I will be 6 yrs natural????. While I do know more now than I did at the start, I feel that this is a never ending journey.
I think that the journey will never end. In November 2016 I began with my journey and in March 2016 I did my big chop. Today I have 7 inches of hair on some parts of my head and the shorter parts are 6/5. I am aware that some people will say that it’s not possible unless I have a looser hair pattern, but no, I am a “4c” girl all the way.
This month, as I go into the second year of my journey, the same strategy will be used to achieve more lenght. Two things that definitely helped to retain my length is that I only combed my hair twice in the past year while finger detangling the rest of the time. And I used crochet braids so that my hair was never stressed out. SO, my journey will continue even when I have reached my 24 inches of hair.
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