You will heal, you will conquer!

There was a time a few months back I just felt extremely unhappy with myself. I just could not pin point where these bizarre feelings came from. I felt like I didn’t connect really well with myself. Or with a certain part of my body.

Well, some look at me and see a happy jovial cheerful completed and living it kind of person. I might be all that at times but there are little loopholes too. I’m not always okay. I have embraced that fact. It is okay sometimes not to be okay.

If you are an immigrant or foreigner in a certain country and you get a hairdresser who provides services that leave you 90% satisfied, you keep them no matter how annoying and uncomfortable those few hours at their shop make you feel. Because you hope in the end you will like your hairstyle and not have to comb or style out your curls on a daily basis.

Same case if you have a barber who gives you the cut of your life in under one hour and charges you a reasonable price you keep them. Regardless of how many drunks or annoying people you will have to sit in between at that particular barbershop waiting for that particular barber.

Prove me wrong if in a hair saloon, Precisely African hair salons is not the place to hear the latest gossip or rumors.

That is where the most rumor mongering and incoherent talks happen (sometimes you learn something new, I know). It is where you get educated on the latest trends. Don’t tell me it depends on where you go. There will always be a certain thing that will nerve you in whichever one you choose to visit.

Since I came to Vienna I have been to several hair salons trying to avoid one or two things from the previous one only to find myself going back to the first one who did my hair better. I have gone to people’s homes to do my hair only to realize I’m not comfortable in all that mess and unfortunately the smell of some of their food doesn’t sit well with me.

And also the too much talk is no different from been in a salon. Did I say I dislike when you try to hook me up with your brother who is not your brother but just some guy who asked you to find them a “wife”. Y’all know some African’s are all related. Until you ask deeper and they say “…in my country we all refer to each other as brothers and sisters.”

I have invited some women to do my hair at my place and one complemented me by saying I am fat. Insinuating I have no stress in this country and if I was in my home country I would be double my size. Mmh interesting line on conversation. Also I just don’t like that because you are in my space, my home you think we should talk about who shares my bed with me or my daily routine or why I should buy a TV.

I have digressed. Now you might by now know what part I didn’t connect with. Yes you are right. My hair. It has gone through so much. Did I mention I can make my own hair (which I do sometimes) but I find it easier or better when someone else does it for me.

I have had 3 big chops so far. It felt liberating. Something only a person who has done it can explain. The feeling is out of this world. Every individual who shaves/shaved their hair has/had their own reasons and motivation.

My last chop was because I just didn’t connect with my hair anymore. I literally felt it wasn’t part of me. Probably it was because I was undergoing through some emotional battles and breakdowns in my life and I felt I had to disconnect with some part of my body and it happened to be my hair. It worked out for me.

It probably also had to do with countless disappointments after my salon visits. I don’t know. Maybe tired of my hairdresser always lying to me. You know how they tell you on phone when making appointments, ” just come anytime. I have no customers.”

You get there and you are the ninth on the line. Or how the charges always seem to go 10€ higher than the last time. Or how you end up doing 60% of the work. You the customer divide the braids, pass it, they fix and you do the finishing. Or how so many strangers or men keep hanging around there eyeing you trying to buy you with a malt or Heineken.

Maybe it also had to do with none of my close friends knowing how to do my hair in return of me doing theirs. Or those who do never making time to do it for me. Or me not trusting them to do it for me. When I was green here I did many people’s including friends hair for free or for a few coins. Maybe I got frustrated of not receiving the same treatment too.

Probably it wasn’t all that but all I know for sure  is a lot plays a roll in how we feel and it’s just for us to dig deep into us and listen to our little true voices. If that one thing doesn’t bring you joy, like my hair didn’t at that moment, do what you want with it and you will still remain beautiful. You will be rejuvenated. You will heal. Take however much time you need. Listen and you will hear it. You will feel it. You will conquer!