I have recently had people(family) casually comment how I am SOOO into my hair . I started to take a bit of offense (YEA, I LOVE MY HAIR WHATS IT TO YOU!) Of course I didnt really say that but it did get me to thinking, Am I doing the most? Do I put too much emphasis on my hair? My answer to myself was yes. I then decided that I will try not to mention hair, touch my hair too much ect. But thats kinda crazy right?, ignore somthing so wonderfully grand and in your face flowing from my head. People are constantly asking me about my hair, who am I to deny someone the joy of learning about naturalness? I THEN decided that if this is my passion I am going to continue to embrace it, because living perm free is not just a fad for me. This is a lifestyle change that continues to evolve as my hair evolves; lengthwise, the texture ect...So to those of you that think some of us in the NHC are over the top, WE ARE. Why?, because we are having the time of our lives learning how to manage our tresses as we could have been all along (for those of us who had perms anyway). So please excuse us while we celebrate this wonderful time where we are embracing who we really are. What's that saying? If you cant beat 'em, join 'em. Go natural!!
I totally agree with everything you mentioned! I too am natural now after years and years of having a perm. I think too that the many years us women have spent as children wishing we had long flowy hair but never fully fulfilling that desire contributes to the fact that it's so easy to be overexcited and develop an obsession now that we finally realize having that long flowy hair was possible all along. Many of us have never learned how to care for our own hair or even denied that we had it, by perming our roots whenever we felt them growing in. It's more of an awakening that we're all going through which in my opinion is the best thing to happen to women of color since the end of segregation. People say "it's just hair", which in itself is true but it means so much more than that.