My Hair Story

How God has used black curly hair to save my life.
Well to be honest I am not sure that I can say “to save my life.” I wanted to say it because it sounds more dramatic. Truly, God used my hair to do important things.I was a child people called shy. I called myself socially scared, nervous, timid. I eventually came to think that the term shy was just an acceptable excuse. It was a cover up for a lack of courage. Yes, it was other things too. For me to be called shy also meant that I was socially ill-prepared. I didn’t posses the knowledge or skills to function comfortably around people. Although, I got by. One of the biggest truths that I was totally unaware of was the fact that to make friends I needed to merely talk to people. I had, for many reasons, developed the belief that people were friends with you if you were cool. I thought that if you were cool people would come and talk to you and be your friend.I thought this not directly but I definitely functioned this way. I saw the importance that people put on how I dressed, the kind of school supplies I had, the kind of lunch I brought, the way I acted, and judged how cool I was. If I was cool enough people would be my friend. It is true that nearly all of my friends came to me. I almost never pursued anyone as a friend. I acted with the belief that since I wasn’t popular I must not be cool. I though, “I need to get the things that the popular kids have, so that I can be cool too.” When I brought my lunch to school I was worried that kids would see what I had and tease me. There was nothing odd or bad about my lunch. For one thing, kids would make fun of anything. It really bothered me. It made me feel bad. I learned to do what I could to avoid being made fun of. For another thing, I never had name brand things. The cool kids did. I was worried that this might make people think that I was less cool. My response to all of this was I had a specific way that I ate. I put my lunch bag in front of me. I would stick my hand in and feel around. I would find what I wanted and pull it to the opening but not out. I would open the wrapping and eat from the lunch bag. Another funny thing is that I would assume that the other kids would think something was not cool if I thought it. For example I didn’t like crumpled trash. I was especially repelled by crumpled, used plastic wrap. So I would unwrap my sandwich at the mouth of my lunch sack and push the wrapper in. I would pull the sandwich out and eat it. I would get nervous if a kid looked as if he would see inside my lunch bag. Once a kid looked and saw that I was eating cheesy corn chips. He said, “Can I have some of your Doritos?” I was shocked. These weren’t Doritos they were some off brand. I was amazed that he didn’t make the distinction. (The chips were in a clear bag. I just thought that if someone was eating Doritos they would have be in a Dorito bag.) In high school life was pretty much the same I had a few good friends and that was about it, until I let my hair start to grow.I never had a hair cut that I liked. I never thought that any of my haircuts were cool. I have curly hair. This hair that eventually would be used for great things was initially despised. The reason is that all of the hair cut trends weren’t possible for me. When bowl cuts were cool I couldn’t get one. For the most part I had a generic short hair cut. Once I talked to my mom about it. She offered that I could go to a hair cutting place to get it styled. (My mom always cut my hair up until this point). I was nervous. I felt timid. The lady cut my hair and I enjoyed the experience. I liked my hair cut. I thought that it was cool. This was right before school started. And on the first day of school someone said sarcastically, “Nice haircut. Did you cut it yourself?” That was rough. I felt awful. Well, in high school I decided to grow it long. Naturally my hair began to grow into an afro. Some kids teased me. They threw paper in it and pencils at it, trying to make them stick. I was growing some thicker skin. Some kids gave genuine compliments. I did better at hearing the compliments and ignoring the teasing. I think though, mostly I learned to stop caring. I began to actively not care about being cool. The Lord is great. My longer hair brought perhaps a little popularity. But I didn’t care. At some point my rebellion hit a pinnacle. I chose to fully pursue as uncool of an image as possible. To me I was saying, “In your face cool kids. I wont be rule by you any longer because I don’t care about cool.” I learned to recognize a double standard. The kids who were popular often did things that were very stupid and uncool. Yet they somehow remained popular. This fueled my apathy.I enhanced my afro (by growing it longer and picking it out). I bought plaid clothes from the thrift store. I wore button up shirts, with clip on bow ties, suspenders, and the occasional pocket protector. When I had to get glasses I picked out thick black frames and put decorative white tape in the middle. I had people asking me, “Have you ever tried superglue?” To which I replied, “What? Oh my glasses aren’t broken it is a look I am going for.” The more I rebelled the more popular I became. I tried to be nerdy and people thought that it was cool. (It was funny to me that many adults didn’t get it. I remember one person said to my youth leader, “That poor kid he doesn’t even know that he is dressed like a total nerd.”)At this point I still didn’t have the tools to make friends. But my hair and the rest of my look got people talking to me. Without knowing it I began to practice talking to people. I also began to realize that I can say whatever I want and many times people will just go with it. I had previously thought that people were your friends if you said the right things. I didn’t know what were the right things. I didn’t know that people just talked about anything. You see for me other kids were like the president might be for most people. If you met the president what would you say? You wouldn’t want to say the wrong thing. You might not know the right thing to say. He might seem untouchable. To me other kids were untouchable. When I thought I though this I think that it was because when I would say something it must have not flowed with conversation or something because it seemed that people often ignored me. This contributed to my idea that I had to have the right things to say in order to talk to people.) It wasn’t until probably my junior year that I realized that if I want to be someone’s friend I should just talk to them. When this happened. It was like a flood started. I would joke and talk to people I would have never even looked at before. I became more confident in what I wore. And would wear things like ropes for suspenders. Sometimes my pants would be five sizes too big. And I had many more friends. It wasn’t for years to come that I would learn many other useful tools for talking with people. But God used my hair help me make the first step.