yestuhday.

i'll keep it one hunnent with you. i got my haircut yesterday and was initiallynot as excited as I had been expecting to be. for a couple reasons. i actually went through a couple phases yesterday about the change. a list of thoughts/processes/events from the day..

1.  Hrmm. Is this what the photograph looks like? 

a. Well, no. you know why? Bc my hair isn’t long enuf for that yet.

b. But wow, I look kinda boxed up. I guess my mom could be right this time. I’m  have to put some texture in it.

c. “b” comes mostly from “the line” and how it sharpens my face extra in conjunction with the angles in my ‘fro now. I’m cool with the ‘fro angles but I’ve realized that I prefer my natural hair line to “the line” constructed at the barbershop. I don’t need to be that clean. And I like to believe I can get away with it bc I’m a lady *blush* haha.

2.  wait for my grandfather to say something snipey about it. His friend is cutting my hair, and apparently as the barber said, “They go back like car seats.” (I’ma have to use that one). I was very surprised actually these black men in their sixties were okay with a young woman getting her hair cut at the barber. I appreciated it. My PopPop gave me a very neutral comment. He called me Angela Davis. I don’t know if that’s a compliment from him. I think it’s supposed to mean I’m militant and clearly don’t give a damn abt what society would rather have me do to fit in… so that’s pretty true. I can’t be claiming the Angela Davis type militancy yet tho. Not quite there. But as far as being critical of accepted ideas about race, gender, class etc.. mmhm.

3. I get home, and my grandma mourns my baby hairs. She says I look so much older now. Considering my grandma liked to tell me I looked 16 whenever I came home from college, I’m thinking "older" means I actually look 21 now and it’s trippin her out a lil.

4. My hair was twisted by the time my mom got home. I wanted to make it a lil softer and put texture in it. It works. Got my rectangle and texture. Mmhm.

5.      I skipped my sister. She said it’s a nice cut, but it’s a dude’s haircut.

6.      I’ll give her that. But then I think, she/I only think(s) it’s a dude’s haircut bc we’ve only really seen men with it before. I begin to tire of/understand more why people feel so constricted by our understandings of gender expression. I understood it before, but it’s different when it’s a lil more in my face. Before it was my grandma insisting I wear a skirt & purse to church. My dad upset I wasn’t wearing earrings every time he picked us up on the weekend. I don’t wear makeup. I’m playing down my looks etc. My sister telling me I need to “Girl it up.” This hair takes it another step tho, bc previously I’ve had “pretty hair.” Straightened (by hot comb)àStraightened (by perm & flat iron)braids/crimps etc (transition to natural hair) Lil afro ”twisties” starter locs longer locs long sometimes curly locs (and it’s also important to note my locs were the locs ppl always told me they wanted for themselves bc they were soft & curly and not nappy like others and that always left me a lil “whhaaa?” bc I think locs are beautiful nappy too. My soft hair actually made it take longer for it to lock & one of my friends still joked they were still “twisties” bc they were so soft but yeah) Then I cut about 10 inches of my hair off one random day during finals week (even tho I had been thinking abt a haircut since Feb, documented on this blog actually) and came home to a whole bunch of talk (also documented on this blog).

7.      I think, “Will I be less attractive to men now?”

8.      I think, “Do I really care? Do I really care, if I like my hair? If it’s feels natural. If sometimes I forget I had locs because they’re behind me now. If I’m happy with the way that I look, how much does it really matter if I have somehow decreased the # of men that would be attracted to me now?” I answer, “Nah, not really. Not much.” And keep it movin.

9.      And really that’s just an assumption. When I cut my hair in May, the amt of male attention didn’t really change all that much. I don’t really feel like I get that much anyway. I’m actually pretty oblivious to all of that most of the time.

10.   And that takes me to this part… “Why is Jessica afraid to be pretty?” When I first heard this question I thought, “huh?” but I also feel the question is legitimate. I didn’t have an answer until yesterday. I don’t think “afraid…” Afraid, I’m not that. I’m just disinterested. I’m told that I’m pretty. Some people wish I would accentuate the pretty. But I realize that I’ve never steeped my identity in “pretty.” Being “pretty” and the idea of somehow exploiting it to my advantage doesn’t make me happy. So why not explore the looks I’m interested in?

11.    I’ll get dressed up, put on some makeup every once & a while. I put some effort into the way I dress bc it makes me happy, because that serves as a means of expression for me sometimes. But as far as my face, that really doesn’t have much to do with me. I’m not responsible for how that turned out. I’m responsible for my skincare & all that but I can’t create my face (I guess with makeup but still). But whatevs, I just don’t find it all that interesting. Maybe I’m privileged to not have to think about that. I’m grateful for the compliments. But I don’t want to believe beauty is that simple. Or really, I just don’t care to “Girl it up” if I don’t want to. Yeah, that’s it. I do what I want. Haha. A la Cartman. But without the tragic Maury teen aspect to it. Seriously, that was a joke and a tangent bc South Park is hilarious, but it is important that I do what I want and not what everyone else wants me to do or thinks i should do bc I actually have a pretty good head on my shoulders and a  good understanding of myself. 

12.   I resolve. I like my hurr. I will continue to experiment with it. As I’ve said before, a big afro is in my future. Who knows what I’ll be doing in the meantime? Though I do want to keep that transition in mind. But um, if I’m happy with me I’m not particularly worried about what other people think. I find being secure in myself and being true to who I am and what I want is the best way to attract people anyway. I’ve met some great people that way that accept me for who I am, as I am. And actually seem to love it, who’da thunk it?

13.   But for visual purposes/clues, my hair pretty much looks like the pic above, cause there you can’t see the little Mohawk back. I just essentially just got the hair in the back cut down low and a trim on the sides and the top is still high. I likes it. I’m just wondering how I’ma fit my hair into the hats for the winter.

14.   I’ll work it out.

15.   I like being different.

16.   Most of the time. Sometimes when I think about it too much, I get scared. I get all “Oh shit, this is me. I feel all buck naked & vulnerable. This is what Ilook like. This is what I want. This is what I sound like. This is what I write like. This is what I think like. Oh no! People are inside of me now. What ifthey don’t like it? What if they don’t accept it? What if I’ve lost something of mine now? Where will they go? OH NO! CRAP ON A STICK!” Haha. And then I calm down (this process varies in length & nature, i'll admit) and get over it.

17.   I really gotta pump the brakes on the “end of the world” thinking. I be trippin. Self doubt is tiring and also getting pretty boring. I’m so used to it (read: drained by it) I don’t even believe myself when I start my insecure thinking. Sometimes I wonder if I do it for nostalgia sake. Because taking the leap feels a lil foreign. I get homesick for the comfort zone & the land of least risk for the scraps of reward. But I prefer the adventure. I prefer the leap, and looking back is okay for analysis, to understand myself better, but I’d break my neck, or get a  tension headache or something if I never turned back around, right? Right. Mmhm.

18.   I just want to be happy. And I have to leave a few things in the past in order to achieve that.

19.   The power of the mind is astounding. Real talk. And my inner monologue is strong. I’ma give it some super things to say to me. And then I’ll be doin some super thangs. ‘Cause I believe them. Isn’t that gonna be grand?!

20.  I want the progress. I don’t want the fear. Unless it’s there for me to try to understand, deconstruct and then surmount.

21.   Being an "adult" is interesting. I feel like one all of a sudden. But, that’s a whole ‘nother post. Suffice it to say, I once told one of my mom’s friends I didn’t really feel like an adult (like months ago) and he asked me, “Well, do you make your own choices?” and I said, “Yeah, I do.” And he said “Well, you’re an adult.” I understand that more now. I’m taking steps for me, to my later peril or wild success but they’re mine and that feels better than wishing someone could just tell me what to do every once and a while so I’d have someone else to blame my failure on. Failure is actually not so bad. It gives you a new beginning. And sometimes it takes you a way from one thing, so you can have another. But it’s so dark inside the failure you forget that light exists beyond it. And sometimes you make the fog of the failure thicker, in an effort to find comfort in it. It’s easier than making your way out of it, cause you get to stand still. But as I learned when I stood for an hour and some change looking through them records in the basement, standing still makes your knees weary. Oooh chile! Haha. But if you’re standing still for something like the records, or say… my summer in Philly where I wasn’t doing anything résumé-able but had rewards that’s cool. Am I losing control of the metaphor? Maybe. Am I still saying something that makes sense, getting my point across? I think so. Haha. Well, to me anyway.

22.  It’s okay to give yourself a little faith. It’s okay if it’s not like someone else’s faith, if it doesn’t come from the same places. It’s okay if you don’t know how to keep it going, if it feels much smaller than you want it to be… just try. Just start, just start again, just keep moving. Or if you’re gonna sit still, let it be so when you start moving you do it more intelligently, and if you stumble, thas cool *shoulder shrug* just don’t give up on yourself. That’s never a good look. And I do mean never.


 Oh and this just came up in my Pandora, crazy fly. 

Salutations.