Curls. I'm talking about the frizzy, crazy, and kinky ones. Where every morning you walk into battle, armed with only a brush and the sheer will to get to class on time. That has been my life since I was a toddler. Of course, at the time it was my mother's battle until I was old enough to be passed the torch and the torture.

For a long time in childhood, I viewed my curls as an annoyance. All of my female friends had long straight locks or these lovely tumbling waves that hit the middle of their back- and then there was me. I remember wanting to straighten my hair, desperately asking my mother or my grandmother, both women with wavy hair, every year if they could take me to a salon and have them straighten it or if they would buy a straightener for my birthday so I could try it myself. It was often denied with protests of adoration for my curls from both of them but I just wanted to be like all the other girls in my school. I wanted to be able to have layers put in it or to be able to wear it down and not have the humidity expand my curls out until I felt less like a little girl and more like a clown. I remember there would be times I'd get so frustrated in the morning with it that I'd throw my hair into a bun in defeat and head to school.

Besides my own personal issues with my hair, it became known to me through teasing that having them made me different. Not only was I one of the tallest girls, but I was also the only one with the "crazy curls". Naturally, this only made me want to get rid of them more and be like everyone else, but my family wouldn't relent and I would cry because it felt like they didn't understand. Why wouldn't they let me be like everyone else? Why couldn't they see that these curls made me unhappy? I was convinced that if they had to deal with them they wouldn't want them either. I mean, even when I looked up pictures of curly hair online, I was only shown women with wavy hair or women who had put hot rollers into their hair. But there was no one like me. My hair was different, I was different.

It wasn't until my thirteenth birthday, that I finally got my wish. I was given twenty dollars and I bought a hair straightener. I went home, washed and conditioned my hair and once it was dry got to work straightening it. Two. Grueling. Hours. By the end my arms were in pain and my fingers hurt because of the steam that came off the straightener but my hair was finally straight. My hair was like I'd always wanted it to be. It hit the middle of my back at two feet long and was the best day of my life. I fit in with my friends and I remember that people would do double takes when they saw me because I looked like a completely different person. People would come up to me and say things like "wow, it's so long" or "I love them". It made me feel proud. Like in Disney's Little Mermaid I was only able to hold them straight for three days until they started to curl again. Then it was back to my curls and I was just me again. My mother informed me that I wasn't allowed to straighten too often or my curls would get damaged and not look nice. So it became a special occasion thing when I would straighten my hair.

I kept this up for years but the times I straightened my hair became far and few between as I learned how to style my hair on my own. I figured out how gel versus mousse worked in my hair (by the way mousse is the best way to go) how high ponytails were my best friend on hot days and how wearing my curls down in the winter was not only cute but an added bonus in keeping me warm. Since I was still only allowed to straighten my hair occasionally, my hair became less about what made me different but what made me unique. I had grown to love my curly hair. I found myself missing the way my curls would spring back up when I pulled them or how they would curl around my fingers when I'd twisted them softly around my fingers when I'd daydream in class. I found that I now I had more ways to style my hair then ever before but when I'd straighten it I'd only be able to do two or three things and then my hair didn't look nearly as nice to me as the curly counterpart.

Then last year, my second year in college, I made the big chop! It took me awhile to find the right style but I went from two feet of long hair to it barely reaching the middle of my neck. I had to readjust to a new style and if I straightened it in any way it looked horrible. My only choice was to be curly. Oddly enough, I found a sense of empowerment with the new cut and the fact that I couldn't hide my face or my curls. It was how I looked and that was it and that feeling was amazing.

It's been a year since I made the cut and I'm letting the curls grown out again. I want to be able to appreciate them in a way that I couldn't when I was younger. I disliked my curls for almost 13 years because they made me different and complicated, but now I am able to look at them as a special part of me. It doesn't make me less than any of my female friends with straight hair, nor does being different ever have to be considered a bad thing. My hair is frizzy, kinky, and crazy and I'm proud to say that it is mine.