Love yourself, love your curls

I can still remember every detail of the first time I relaxed my hair. I relaxed my hair when I was in 6th grade and that was one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made. I was tired of having my hair in braids and twists all my life so I decided to change that. Nobody in my family had hair like mine so I thought relaxing it was my best option. Everyone had straight hair at school and I guess I wanted to fit in. I didn’t have anyone to help me handle my hair or what products would work for it.
My mother didn’t want me to relax my hair although she has been relaxing her hair for decades so that was very hypocritical of her but once again I should have listened to my mother. The relaxer made my hair straight but at a cost of damaged hair and a sensitive scalp due to harsh chemicals. My relaxed hair looked unhealthy, shed easily, thin, brittle and always dry. I had to relax my hair twice a year which was very time consuming to go to the salon for hours, and very expensive.
I couldn’t take the pain any longer so after eight years of relaxing my hair I stopped in my freshman year of college. My best friend since 6th grade Stephanie, also stopped relaxing her so she motivated me to go natural too. Transiting my relaxed hair back to its natural state was no easy task but it was all worth it in the end. I started to use social media sites such as YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest that helped me find out about curly hair products.
Although I was transitioning my relaxed hair to its curly state, I was also transitioning my negativity to a positivity. All the things I thought were bad about my hair are all the good things about them and I just learned how to take care of it and love it. This journey back to my natural hair has taught me a great deal of things like patience and self-love. Thank you to social medium platforms like YouTube that helped me out on my natural hair journey. I thought it was nice when people complimented me when my hair was straightened but I love it more when people compliment my curls. My curls are beautiful and I wouldn’t change that for the world.