Dear Clueless One,
First of all, I can’t believe you begged your Momma at 10 years old to get a perm. Your hair was perfectly fine the way God made it. Even with your mother getting it pressed every so often, it was healthy, long, and flowy. That’s what you wanted, right? Hair like those that were not like you. Not the same ethnicity as you, but that’s what you wanted. Your mom gave in and you finally got your perm. You didn’t know it would hurt, huh? Burned like hell didn’t it? Especially those edges because you steady tried to brush them down to put it up in that little rinky dink pony tail. Girl, you were a mess! I bet you learned for the next time, but you didn’t. You still would brush and scratch that scalp before you got that perm on your head so them edges would be laid. All the kids were doing it, so it seemed like the right thing to do. If you could just see what I can see now…
That’s me standing in front of my mother, pre-perm.
Let’s fast forward to middle and high school. You wanted to play sports. Ha! You didn’t think about how crazy you would look once you started running down that court and that hair was literally stuck to your head because you had a burned scalp! Girl that pony tail was NOT moving! LOL. All that sweating (because you were a pretty good baller), SOS (scab on scalp), lack of washing your hair, and inexperience knowing your own hair took a toll on you, huh? You were even self conscious about your hair. AND YOU HAD THE RIGHT TO BE BECAUSE IT WAS AWFUL! I am literally LMAO. Oh, you don’t know what that means because it was the 90’s, it means Laughing My Ass Off! That’s why you had to cut it off and start again toward the end of your high school days.
You’re in college now. By this time you sort of figured out how to get that flowy look, that booody. You still had no clue as to what your hair could do if it was not relaxed. I saw you looking at your cousin funny when she decided to stop getting a perm and grow some locs. You are so ignorant! SMDH. That stands for Shaking My Damn Head….I forgot. You steady went back and forth to somebody’s salon to get those kinks removed from your hair when you should have been removing them from your brain. RIP Marcus Garvey. I’m just sitting here thinking about all of the time you spent in a salon getting your hair relaxed. And all of the curling and flat irons you bought. CURLING irons…how ironic. Girl, I wish you could see what I know now. The only time you wanted that “new growth” to come in was when you wanted them damn braids. A few years from now, they will be called “protective style”. Bet. Don’t laugh. Oh, and I saw you getting that weave every now and again. They were alright. 
Graduated from college and you think you’re grown now. You now have the audacity to pay someone else to wash and flat iron your own hair. Getting that good relaxer every four weeks AND a wash every other week, girl, you saw that salon twice a month! Slave, much? But shout out to my stylist for keeping my hair laid! Time goes by and you start to dabble in flexirods and perm rods. You like that curly look, huh? GO FIGURE! But why did you get mad when you stepped outside and your “curls” go flat? It ain’t the humidity, girl, it’s the RELAXER!! Your hair is relaxed. It ain’t supposed to hold no curl! You didn’t like that, remember? This came to be your favorite style, but didn’t want to have it styled like that when you went to New Orleans all those times because it is too humid down there. Girl, BYE! But I liked that short cut you had. That was nice. I have nothing to say about that. That was pretty dope.
I was pregnant, but my hair was nice.
I really liked the curly look, but it was so limp.
My mom started to “transition”…we didn’t know it was called that back then. We had no clue what to do with her hair. This was 2006.
Loved this cut with the layers.
I just thank God that you finally started to notice and admire all of the women that was natural. I know you never said it out loud, but you digged their afros, locs, and puffs. And I know you wished you could do it. And thank God for the man that invented YouTube! They gave you hope and plenty of inspiration. And shout out to your cousin for chopping all of her relaxed hair off because THAT put the nail in the coffin for you. She did it. It was a done deal then. Her courage increased yours. And we all know what happened a month later….it would have been sooner, but you had just got that quick weave installed. I understand.
Love always,
A Much Wiser Woman
