How did we get here?

‘Now why would you do this?’

Silence.

‘I thought…we had something good. What went wrong? We were getting on so well.’

More silence.

I Sigh. ‘Okaaay, what did I do wrong this time?’

I stared at the mound of coily black locks perched on the corner of the bathroom sink. I had never seen that much hair come off my head in one comb session. If according to my hair-blogducation, I am supposed to lose about 50-100 hairs on average per day, then good heavens I must have lost 3 days’ worth of hair in a single day. So I knew something definitely wasn’t right.

I had just done a length check in February and was so proud that I had grown an extra 2 inches of hair close to my 2^nd year anniversary of being natural. Now it felt like it was all gone. I wished there was some way to glue the whole thing back onto my head. I wanted to flush it down the toilet so my husband would never know this catastrophe ever occurred but I just imagined it would float right back up to haunt me. So instead, I reluctantly put it in the bin and shut the lid tight. Which wasn’t a great idea either cos when he came home, pretty much the first thing he said to me was ‘ wow you lost a lot of hair?’ Yeah. Thanks. I noticed.

I love my hair but I am still learning to understand it. I still don’t fully know what it wants and what it doesn’t want.

Sometimes I think I understand my hair, only for us to end up with me on the bathroom floor begging for forgiveness and a second chance to make things right. I love my hair but I am still learning to understand it. I still don’t fully know what it wants and what it doesn’t want.

I wished it would speak to me! I mean, say something before I give up! Communicate with me, tell me what I did so that we can be done with the apologies and get on with our beautiful relationship. But it said nothing. ‘As usual,’ I thought. ‘I’m just gonna have to work it out by myself, right?’

I tried to remember how we got here. Flashback.

I recently discovered the Water Only (WO) method which I thought suited my currently frugal lifestyle. I listened to the many youtube women claiming that the WO method worked wonders for them. Their voluminous waist length hair was living testimony. I stopped washing my hair with any soaps for nearly 2 months. I had already stopped using shampoos so it was really easy for me to stop using soap altogether. I also decided I would also stop using my comb and only finger detangle. That was a great idea I also got from some other youtube women. But it made perfect sense to me. No yanking off my hair with a comb, less breakage, Right? My hair also seemed to love this WO experiment and finger detangling method. I was waking up to bouncy looking hair and singing Beyoncé’s ‘Flawless’ to myself in the mirror.

Until my encounter with the first dreadlock this fateful night in the bathroom. My African head voice went, ‘ok, no problem. Shebi its only one dread nau.’ Then I came across dread number two and then dread number three. That was enough for me. I ran in search for my comb praying I didn’t actually throw it out on my finger detangling happy trip. I had never been so happy to see my comb. It looked dead happy to see me too, gappy smile and all. I combed all those dreads out with a fierce determination. But in the process, I lost nearly all my new growth.

I left the bathroom thinking of a million ways to repair this damage and make my love happy again.