I am not my hair. Or am I?

This weekend, I finally had the time and motivation to do something I haven’t done in 5+ years: I (temporarily) straightened my hair.

Part of the reason I haven’t put hotcomb to hair strands in so long is that I never really felt the inclination. Okay, fine–I admit that being lazy busy had a lot to do with it, but my natural hair texture also felt more me. However, last weekend, curiosity got the best of me, and after a protein treatment and deep conditioner, I fired up the ol’ Gold N’ Hot curling iron, carefully combed and brushed out my coils, and got to work.

Ah, memories

The process didn’t take as long as I thought it would (whoo!), but it definitely brought back some long dormant memories: The sizzling sound of hair oil as it meets heat, the slippery clamp of the curling iron, the smell of hot metal and almost-burnt hair.

The results looked like a cross between Prince’s 1979 album cover and one of RHOA Kim’s wigs:
Then I got the brilliant idea to set it on bendy rollers and wound up looking like a disco version of Blair Warner:

Sigh. Yep, same old hair. My straight hair feels like a childhood acquaintance I haven’t seen in a while, and it hasn’t really changed.

I want Cece hair!

I remember a particularly vulnerable (read: insecure) time around 7th grade or so, when I would’ve given my left pinkie toe for my hair to behave like Cece Peniston’s–to have it hang flat in a shiny ebony-colored curtain, swinging neatly to and fro when I moved, before immediately settling back in its carefully styled place.

Let me tell you, my hair never would–and still refuses to–lie flat. It took years for me to realize my strands are just not heavy enough before I gave up that fight, and last weekend I was quickly reminded of the time and effort I used to put into trying to get my hair to do something it just wasn’t made to do.

So what can you do?

It didn’t take long to learn what my hair will do. It will fluff for days. It will feather. It will form unsolicited swoops and swashes ’til the cows come home, which is why I’ve grown to appreciate the “tousled bedhead” look.

I really just had to accept that my hair doesn’t stay in it’s place. Oh sure, I can attempt to control where it goes and what it does, and it will cooperate to a certain extent. But then there comes a point where it seems to decide that it would much rather loop and swirl and do it’s own thing than obediently stay put and do as it’s told.

I can relate.

Maybe I am my hair.