Happy New Hair!

So, I did the big chop... AGAIN. It's actually the lowest my hair has ever been and I couldn't be happier!

I've always attached much value to my hair in relation to how beautiful I felt. I grew up hearing "yuh beauty inna yuh hair" which, in essence, means that your most beautiful self is always affixed to how nicely coiffed your hair is. In my younger years though, I equated "nicely coiffed" to long hair - whether relaxed or natural -. Growing up, my hair was never long so, in the summertime when I had my weave or braids installed, I was my most confident because I felt my most beautiful.

I think it's important to note that my hair was relaxed for more than 15 years at the time of my first big chop at 19 years old. So you can imagine my simultaneous terror and sense of bravado when I decided to spontaneously cut my relaxed ends 3 months into my transition as opposed to the original 1 year that I had planned for. The girl that saw herself only with bone straight hair for almost all her life, was now sporting a teeny-weeny afro. I did not love it at all and I installed braids almost immediately afterwards.

I consistently wore braids for the first couple of months as a natural girl because I just did not know how to feel about my hair. Eventually though, I caught on to the fact that I'm actually beautiful whether I have bone straight hair or super coily tresses. Like, duh!

I started to realise not only was I just as beautiful as before, but I preferred curly haired Codeth way more. By the last leg of year 2 of my natural hair journey, I really started getting the hang of the braid out; my slick backs were a little cuter than usual; my low bun was noticeably bigger; my high puff was fuller and I started to REALLY feel myself.

I was actually a little upset that I waited this long to transition to natural because HAD I KNOWN that your girl was going to love her curls this much, I would have chopped it off ages ago!

I was feeling myself to the point of a messy bun (lol who do I think I am?)

At this point, I was hyped about the versatility of natural hair and the fact that my hair was GROWING.

The length may not be much to some of you BUT my relaxed hair barely grew past my ears so you must understand my excitement when I saw my hair brushing against the girls . However, I got a little too excited because a few months after I took the picture above, I decided on getting a silk press for my 23rd birthday. I was turning 23 on the 23rd and I felt like that was something special enough to be commemorated by straightening my hair for the first time in 3 years. So I did it, and I was very pleased by the results.

The bone straight Codeth stayed for 2 weeks then she had to go because I missed my curls. Can you imagine how devasted I was to find that after washing my hair, parts of it remained bone straight? I was on the brink of tears, really. I wasted no time in calling for an appointment to cut those straggly ends loose. However, this was in December so all the good stylists I know were booked out for the holidays. My big chop would have been delayed for about another 2 weeks and I wasn't mad about that because it gave me time to wash my hair two more times with hopes of the reversion being a delayed process that would've been completed over the next 2 wash days.

The curls never showed up.

I was furious at myself for damaging my hair so badly and was almost brought to tears again.

ALMOST.

I didn't actually cry because one of my desires that I was too scared to pursue otherwise was going to come to fruition. My Nia Long/Halle Berry/Teyana Taylor era was about to start because your girl was gonna cut everything off!

I remember sitting in the chair and the stylist cut all the straight bits off and I was left with a decent amount of hair - way more than my initial big chop - and she asked if I'm sure I want to go lower. Now the usual me would have folded and left it at that length, but I decided to brave up this one time and told her "cut all of it off".

And now, here we are in a new year, celebrating new hair. I thought it was important - symbolic even- for me to follow through with this cut because it signaled new beginnings for me and it set the tone for all other things that I have been too scared to pursue or that I have put off too many times before.

For a girl who started out by giving her hair way too much credit for her beauty, this is a bold step. This moment is in my top 3 most confident times in my life and I simply cannot believe it.

As you read this blog post, I hope you are even a little inspired to do something bold in 2022 because you owe it to yourself to do the things that you truly desire.

Let me know how you feel about the new hair in the comments and I truly hope you have a happy new year and for my girls who are scared to get that new hairstyle, that's okay sis, you'll do it on your own time. And to everyone donning a new hairstyle this year, ESPECIALLY my baldies, I hope you have a happy new hair too!

xoxo, Codeth <3

p.s.

enjoy these tik toks of my hair transformation :) :

and shut up about my transition lol