promises and vows.

Two lovely older friends of mine complimented my hair this week, mentioning how my natural curls and how I styled them made me look more “becoming”. I thanked them graciously, because: I agree. I love my natural curls, I love when they’re a-flowing, love love love it all.

And then they were like, you should always keep your hair like this. Don’t change it.

Now y’all know variety varieting and being the spice of life and the abundance of style options open to me as a naturalista mean that request can be compared to me scaling Mount Everest, right? It simply cannot be done. Of course, my dear friends are of an age where my pump the brakes response would have fallen on deaf ears. To them, just skipping my protective styles and keeping my natural curls out all the time isn’t a difficult request.

If only.

Here’s why it’s difficult:

1. I get bored.
2. See #1.
3. Protective styles help me grow out my hair (which has been a goal since post-shaved head baldness, early 2022) without me having to witness the actual growth. Because waiting and watching means I’m cutting it off expeditiously.

Plus, they don’t really get the process by which those natural curls are out and about. The wash days and the detangling and the I’m going to cut this mess off and the days when I feel like the furriest mushroom in all the land because my hair looks like the furriest mushroom in all the land. They just see a twist out or a wash and go and don’t know the request made to the heavens to let this hair look decent. It is what it is; there are some folks that aren’t well-versed on the nuances of natural hair and all the things we do to keep it together. I don’t fault them for that, but yes, I did nearly guffaw in response.

But those ladies weren’t playing with me. They uttered “this look is you” and “listen to us” over and over again and something in the air made me sputter that I’d–

Wait for it–

Keep my natural hair out until October.

Now, what made me say this?

Did She (my natural hair) hear all the comments and shake her determined fists in the air? Did She forget that we need braids and twists and weaves and other styles in order to keep She She? I shared the promise with a friend of mine and she was like, be for real. You won’t make it. And she’s right.

But we’ll see how far I can go. I did amend the vow to the end of September, though.

Onwards and curlwards, party peeps.