Curly Top - Page 2

Children are so tough when they're young. A few years later, my mother's delight was not enough protection.

My hair came from my father's side. He had three sisters, all of them with varying levels of curliness. It was known as The Hair. I had The Hair full-strength. My cousin Claudia had a lighter case. Jane had stick-straight hair. But it was red. We envied her.

When she grew up, she got a perm.

My teenage dream was to grow my hair long. Long and flowing. Flowing, yes. Kinking, no. I envisioned beautiful cascading hair falling down my shoulders and back.

You know that awkward growing-your-hair-out stage? That was my entire childhood and teen years.

The hairdressers were sabotaging my efforts. They kept cutting my hair short, instead of letting it grow long as I asked them to. "Just a trim! I'm trying to grow it out."
“Your hair is damaged, “ they would carp. Yes, by YOUR scisors, bitch!

I remember in jr. high, girls would come up to me and ask, "Did you want your hair to look like that? I mean, do you like your hair?" When I hotly answered yes, they would say "oh..." and slide away.

I had gotten used to the "Stuck your finger in a light socket?" joke. But when I was in high school, absolutely everyone started to give me hair advice. I mean everyone. My mother's friends. My friend's mothers. The librarian. Strangers in the grocery store. People visiting from out of town for the day. They all shared one thing in common: naturally straight hair.

Perhaps I shared my dream for long hair with a little too much pathetic fervor. It was like I was some kind of leukemia child. People could look at my split-ended, heat-fried frizzy head and their hearts cried for pity. "Someone grant her her wish!" was their benevolent impulse.

I can't deny it. I was doing terrible, terrible misdeeds to my hair. With a combination of ignorance and desperation, I attacked my mane with curling irons and the most powerful beauty product I knew: Hairspray.

The tragedy was, neither seemed to have any effect whatsoever. And they were all I had.

The only thing I could do was do it more! Leave that curling iron in longer! Use even more hairspray! MORE HAIRSPRAY!

It wasn't working. I tried to listen to the avalanche of advice that came my way, but it was contradictory. "Cut your hair more often!" "Don't cut it for at least 6 months!" "Leave your hair natural!" "Fix your hair everyday to 'train' it to keep the style!"

It was a heavy burden, my hair. I finally collapsed under the weight.

Article Author: Murphy

Murphy Daley is a long-time BlogCritic. Murphy’s first book The Parable of Miriam the Camel Driver draws from her experience in corporate America to examine the bigger questions about balancing career and creativity. …

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