Using Short Hair As A Step To Repairing Self Esteem

August 2011 I was looking for me. Not the girl who kept getting her feelings hurt and not the girl people took glory in trying to boss around. I wasn't looking for the girl who could settle for a boring, but comfortable situation that would make someone else happy. I was looking for what Lashuntrice wanted.

In Self Esteem Is Not Formed Out of Thin Air I wrote a little about seeing a girl in the mirror that people see as irrelevant up until the point that they've pushed her to the edge of the cliff. In order to function, to get someone to even notice my effort, my success, I have to always be standing at the edge of the cliff.

That was one of the reasons why I got the big chop back in September of 2011. No one was expecting me to do it. For months I'd been wearing wigs over my permed hair. At the same time I was bored with life, tired of always hearing about what I was doing wrong, tired of living under someone else's roof, tired of my surroundings, and just needed to do something different. It was time to cut if all off and make another big change. I took having short natural hair as a step to finally be able to start doing me with no excuses.

Once you change your hair, you either become super confident or you go crazy like Britney Spears.

Actually, taking steps to do what I needed to do for myself wasn't that easy. It is still a huge struggle and I'm working on putting instinct before doubt.  At one point I felt like all I needed was time and I could achieve anything. Then a time came where all I heard was the economy is horrible, that I should wait for everything until later even though later was at that moment, and all the things that people felt I was doing wrong. People talk about being strong, but it's incredibly hard to be strong when you're hearing way more negativity than positivity. So I used my hair as my coping mechanism.

Some things are out of my control. Unless I'm wearing heels, I can't become any taller, or try to fix the weather to the perfect temperature, or even change the way anyone else is thinking. However, I have control over my life and the first step for me has always been my hair. When I desperately wanted to have free flowing braids, I finally had them my freshman year of college. The girl who did them practically braided them down to my butt and I loved it. It did wonders for my confidence and responses to ignorance. When I wanted to get braver in life, I did bright red braids to show just how brave I could be. It was about more than a hairstyle. So when I took the short hair leap, I just knew then that it would do wonders for my confidence in other areas of my life. I can't really explain the changes in my self esteem to you. That's up to you to judge.