Growing up, the worst day of the week was always Sunday. The day when tears were bound to be shed, fights were a guarantee, and throwing up out of pure pain was a definite possibility. Instead of being forced into uncomfortable dresses for church or pressured to spend time with relatives unknown to me, my mother did my hair. Week after week my mother would pull a pink wide toothed comb out of her dresser drawer and the fight would begin. Until the age of 8, my dreams were plagued by the devilish pink comb.

I had a hate-hate relationship with my hair when I was a child. Twists, braids, and puffs were what all of the pain came down to week after week, but it never seemed worth it, even though my hair was always on fleek. Trust me, the moment I could actually choose not to have my hair yanked out of my head every Sunday, I chose it. Thus began the decade or so of my “rats nest” of a head of hair, as my mother once called it.

After the years of pain my mother inflicted on my head every Sunday, I had enough. Enough with the products, combs, beads, and crap. My hair needed a break, and to 4^th grade me, that meant doing literally nothing to it. A light brush through (with the wrong type of brush, let that be) happened on a good day and every other day functioned as so: wake up, take a shower, condition my hair (only wash out part of it), beat my hair with a towel to dry it, and (without brushing it) either put it into a rat’s nest of a pony tail or let the rat’s nest lose and let the locks run free. This was my routine almost everyday from 4^th grade to 8^th grade. On the rare occasion that I needed my hair to actually look nice, I forced myself to comb through the monstrosity and often found my hair dreaded in the back of my head. Scared of what my mom would say if she found the seemingly alive knot at the back of my head, I would cut the dread out of my hair. I actually had a pair of long silver scissors in my room that I used only for such occasions.

After years of destroying my hair, I had finally come to the conclusion (after the threat of looking like a hot mess in high school) that I needed to grow up and at least do something with my hair. What does a young doe-eyed 13 year-old do to tame the beast that is her 3C hair? Braids. Day after day for 3 years straight I wore my hair in either one or two three strand braids. Through numerous high school homecomings, picture days, and even two weddings; braids were the only hair style that graced my scalp.

That all changed when I actually decided that my hair meant something to me and could be a force of beauty instead of pain. In my junior year of high school, after coming to the conclusion that braids could no longer suit me, I cut 14 inches off of my hair. That was the turning point for me and how I decided to treat my hair. Instead of hatred, I learned how to love, nourish and care for my hair. I learned what products worked for me and what to avoid at all costs.

My hair became something I loved to experiment with. Whether those experiments ended in a color change, or turned into more drastic changes like a shaved head by the end of my first semester of college, I learned to love my hair. Now, as I begin my second year of college, I have grown to cherish my hair even more. Natural hair isn’t something I run from anymore, now it is something I can embrace. With the help from some natural hair divas from YouTube and friends who know the struggle of trying to tame the natural mane, I have learned to embrace my hair. From nightmares about Sunday’s and pink combs to silver scissor horror stories and years of braids, I have found a love for my natural hair and embraced the unknown that comes along with it.