As far back as I can remember it’s been something I used to define and explain myself. When I was three or four, two boys in my family had their head shaved bald and me being the non-gender conforming lil shit I was just had to go bald too. I didn’t understand why me being bald was such a big deal, it was my hair on my head. I cried and begged until finally I was allowed to have a bald little head. I looked like a talking Malteaser and I was so happy. I didn’t care that I was a little girl with no hair and people might laugh - I was bald as fuck and it rocked. I didn’t care at all. My parents would argue over my hair being cut by one or the other in styles that they didn’t like during my time at either house, I didn’t care much. When I was in primary school I cut chunks out of the front of my hair twice just because, the first time I got a telling off and the second I got stripped to my pants and put in the garden for a while because I had endangered the other person by pissing around with scissors. I was too concerned about someone seeing me to give a fuck about my hair. The sheer humiliation didn’t teach me the lesson it was meant to it just made me resentful and made me resolve to carry on cutting it in places no one would notice. I stopped letting anyone touch it or brush it around then too.
In secondary school I accidentally burnt chunks out of it on a Bunsen burner during a science class, deliberately cut lengths of it off with classroom scissors in the middle of English class, hacked a fringe out in the changing rooms until finally I actually when to get it cut at an actual haircut at a salon. I went from hip length to shoulder and during that cut I was nipped at the whole time“You have nits it disgusting the stylist can see it” I didn’t have nits. I had dandruff but w/e“You look like an emo” I was an emo so fucking yay “You better appreciate this hair cut it’s expensive not that you deserve it” okay then I loved it when it was done. I felt grown up and pretty fucking proud. I went into school the next day excited to show of my hair and I was met with “WHAT THE FUCK HAVE U DONE TO YOUR HAIR?” everyone hated it and I realised I’d done it out of spite. I didn’t want short hair I just wanted to have something that was rebellious. I wasn’t allowed to dye my hair, I want allowed to have clip-in extensions so I resorted to cutting it but thankfully hair grows so two years later I had the length back. I refused to cut it for years until I was basically pestered into having it trimmed, I didn’t want it done at all but hey I agreed to it in the end. I cried when the hair stylist handed me at least 5 inches of my hair and gleefully told me it was so satisfying to cut it off. I never let anyone touch it with scissors again. Even now I’m waiting for it to hit the floor because even if they want to straighten it out or cut off loads it’s not like they can go past my knees without cutting of a foot and that feels like a safe bet because if someone cuts anything past my knees off I’ll go full Howl and call upon the spirits of the darkness.
I went though a phase of covering it with headscarves because I hated people talking to me about it or guys staring at it when I was in Bangladesh. I also covered it so my abuser wouldn’t be able to see it too, I knew how much they liked it so I wanted to hide it, not that it did much though but it felt like a bit of control back in my hands, I guess.
I have had long, black hair so long that most people in my life have never known me with short hair. Hell I can barely remember me with short hair. I’ve had long hair longer than I’ve had mental stability haha. No matter how depressed or unstable I got I managed to keep my mitts off my hair. It’s been hard. When I came away from abuse I wanted to cut it all off because I associated it with being grabbed by then smash against walls and bars, dragged around, beaten up or thrown down stairs.
My partner taught me to love it again, he would stroke it to put me to sleep or calm me down and brush it when I let it get too knotty because I was depressed and unable to find the will to do so. He was the first person I let touch it in years. I slowly started loving it again and seeing it as part of my identity and not the victim I once was. After I had my child my hair fell out in chunks, the lack of sleep/hygiene, PND, psoriasis and generally being postpartum meant I was going bald. I would cry brushing it and watching clumps of it just come away, the pain washing it and seeing it all ball up in the plug. It was so hard seeing the only thing I loved about myself go in the bin and down the plug hole. It stopped though, I was so happy when it finally stopped falling and when it started growing back I was ecstatic, I tried to remain calm it the thought of having my beautiful locks back was too much. I stayed hopeful.
Now my hair is the longest, thickest, healthiest and strongest it’s ever been. My partner finds it everywhere - wrapped around his toe, in his bathroom, inside a folder at work that I’ve never touched, his car, his shoe. Just everywhere, it’s hilarious. My little person loves my hair too, the second I let it down he comes over and starts stroking it with his chubby little clammy hands and saying “wow mommy so pretty”. My favorite thing is the people who don’t like it - it’s too long, it must be dirty, it makes me look like a witch; it’s so funny to me how something so beautiful as long hair can make people think silly things like that.
I get a lot of questions about my hair and one of the first questions people will always ask me is if it’s a cultural or religious requirement for me to from my hair so long. I’m a British person, I was born in Truro ffs. The Cornish aren’t fussed about your hair length. Throughout my life I’ve met very few people with hair like mine, let alone Asian girls. I can recall a handful of folks who had hair as long as mine but for some reason people think it’s not a choice, they assume it was foisted upon me because why would anyone possibly choose to have such long hair? I choose to have long hair just because I like it.
Another thing I have noticed homies want short cuts! I will always get asked what I put on my hair to make it grow, what’s my secret? What magical elixir do I apply to it??? Do I sacrifice chicken and smear the blood on my head????? Okay that last one I made up but honestly that’s what it feels like. It’s rare that anyone just believes I just grew it outta my fucking head. I’ve been asked if it’s extension or a wig before too, like honestly though if I was going to get hundreds of pounds worth of hair stuck to my head I’d want better condition hair haha.
When I say I’ve been growing it for ten years it blows people minds. Idk why? Its a commitment like any other. Y’all have been cutting it for longer than that and multiple times, you’ve all committed to haircuts I’ve just done it to one. But to be honest it’s not one hair cut it changes I get layers when new hair grows, I have a soft fringey things around my face from all the hair coming back in too.
Now I’m 25 I actually look after it, I oil it before a bath and after too with OGX’s Keratin oil and the coconut one. I condition then wash it with Garnier’s Ultimate Blends Honey Treasures products. I try not to use any heat on it but in the winter I have to hairdry it. I brush it at least once a day if not more with a bamboo paddle brush from Body Shop. I rarely use hair ties and tend to put it up in a bun with bamboo sticks that I make from chopsticks but other than that I just let it be.
I love my hair from the roots to the few inevitable splits ends. It’s a mixture of black at the top and dark brown at the bottom from years of growth, I have gray hairs that come and go - I wish they’d stay. I love gray hair; the fact I lived long enough to get them naturally and not through stress like I did at 13-15 astounds me. My husband still looks at me with that look in his eye when he sees it down at the end of the night even though he’s seen it down a million times and my baby loves to play with it when we snuggle up between his fat little finger just like he used to when I would nurse him late at night. Little kids in the street tell me I’m a mermaid and ask to stroke it and grown ups like to inform me of its length. My hair is a safety blanket to me. My hair is such a massive part of me and I’m so happy I never cut it all off again. I’m glad I stopped seeing it as something stagnant rather than my trademark so to speak.
I’m proud of my hair and the reason I grow it - for me. Not because someone who abused me told me to, not because all my family have long hair and I want to fit in, not so I can have something impressive about me, or to show off, not for my partner or for fashion, I don’t grow it due to culture or religion.
I grow it just because because I like it long and it’s taken me many years to truly figure that out and believe it.
My hair is mine and I’ll do whatever the fuck I want with it - including nothing.
Love and fuckery,
Monica
xxx
