When I sat in the hairdresser’s chair this morning and told her that I wanted to go big – she squealed excitedly. “I’ve been hoping you would say that, I’m so excited that I finally get to play with your hair!”
As she fluffed and snipped my dry afro, she continued to express her excitement…
“I can tell you’re a bit of a control freak. You want to control each and every curl, keep them in line and in order. I’m so excited to hear that you’re finally letting lose – isn’t that liberating?”
And in that moment, I realized she was right.
Since my teen years, my hair has gone through some pretty dramatic changes, but whether it was short and curly, or long and straight, it was always controlled. I either doused it in curl product to twirl each piece of hair into place, or I flat-ironed my blunt cut to achieve a smooth, well-aligned ‘do. Never, in all of these years, had I let my ‘fro flow.
In life, as with my hair, I have always been a control freak. I’ve hovered over my children, wanting to control their every move – scheduling every minute of their day. My parenting insecurities have been buried in my constant craving for control. As I get older – and as my children get older, I’m realizing that they need space to grow. They need to learn from their own experiences, and have their own opinions. I still believe in schedules, rules and routines, but I am also starting to see that too much control is restrictive.
It’s time to stop twirling every curl. It’s time to embrace the fact that I’m going to have bad hair days, and that I can’t always control whether or not the tough times are going to happen.
I’ve finally decided that it’s time to let my hair down, and loosen the reins.
And it feels good.
