Hair Goals: A Short Story

When school started, Marcia saw that the pony puffs, pink lotion, and barrettes had disappeared and were replaced by bone straight, silky shiny, egg smelling hair.

Tarice Spencer

Marcia stared in the mirror for a few moments before trying to run her fingers through her hair. There were some coily curls and some matted ends and her roots were puffed out from trying to brush her mane into something of a style. It was one of those days where nothing for her hair worked. Her twist out became puffed out as she tried to separate strands of hair. The edge control didn’t control a damn thing and the tub of bobby pins only pinned up an extreme headache. For a brief moment, Marcia changed her mind and thought about walking out with her hair as it was. But the mirror taunted her. Marcia had created a mess with products, knots and twists on the top of her head. Her deep mocha skin was flawless and her eyebrows were on “yasss,” she was fit but a little thick and she was very content with her outfit for that day. But Marcia didn’t feel as beautiful as she thought she could be. She thought she needed more, she always thought the answer was more though she never had enough. Marcia had hair goals and she did everything she could to meet them.

Relaxer

Back in the seventh grade, every single girl Marcia was friends with in sixth grade had relaxed their hair over the summer. Every. Single. Girl. When school started, Marcia saw that the pony puffs, pink lotion, and barrettes had disappeared and were replaced by bone straight, silky shiny, egg smelling hair. But it looked good. Relaxed hair moved when the wind blew and when the girls walked. Ponytails, buns, side parts and middle parts, half up, half down, and even wrapped around were all flawless. It did smell like something was burning or maybe old decaying batteries when it got wet from sweat in gym, but still, it looked good. And every strand that went out of place from the wind, or sweat was rightfully put back after a few swipes from a comb. Yes, relaxed hair was Marcia’s first hair goal. She didn’t look like her friends anymore and quickly found out what it was like not to fit in. She never before thought she was ugly but she just knew relaxed hair would make her more beautiful.

Marcia’s mom wasn’t having it. Nothing Marcia did convince her mother to allow her to relax her hair. So for three years while old friends were replaced by new friends and the pony puffs were replaced by half braided half out styles, Marcia learned to get by with her short natural hair. She of course within those three years continued begged her mother for a relaxer, when finally it happened. Over the summer before entering into the tenth grade, Marcia received her first relaxer, and she looked good.

Weave

Marcia had beautiful, dark brown, healthy, straight, neck length hair. Neck. Length. Hair. Neck length hair that was always bumped at the ends and tucked perfectly behind her ears. Marcia favored the side part and the side part favored her. But in the hallways of high school between failing algebra grades and hormones, something else was flowing. Synthetic follicles attached to the scalp by an adhesive or thread sewed onto a collection of braids and covered by a small portion of growing hair, presumably “blended” for the appearance of one uniformed and natural look; i.e. WEAVE; Marcia’s second hair goal.

A weave was the perfect solution for Marcia’s short hair. Why wait for your hair to grow when you could just buy some hair and have someone put it in for you. Marcia had it set in her mind that long hair was it. Boys loved it and girls were jealous of it. Marcia struggled a little with insecurities about her appearance, she dealt with acne and had braces, and though her vision was starting to blur from being on her phone so much, she refused to wear glasses. She was small so that was a plus but she just knew all of those insecurities was nothing a little weave couldn’t fix.

Synthetic, human, Yaki, Remy, Brazilian, Peruvian, body wave, loose wave and of course straight, Marcia, well out of high and a Bachelors degree later had tried them all. Thousands of dollars spent over the years from trying to reach her hair goal. So much money into her appearance but years of weaves left her hair broken and damaged. Marcia’s beautician warned her to take care of her scalp and her own hair in between installations, but once Marcia learned how to install weaves herself, the goal to have long hair seemed to be permanent success.

Natural Hair

Marcia, in her late twenties, college educated with both a bachelor’s and a master’s, had her own apartment and was editor in chief for a black owned magazine. She was beautiful and had a strong black man who told her that every chance he got. Marcia had dumped the weaves, years of throwing in chemicals, glue, and no moisture to her own hair caused damage to her ends and edges which was enough to convince Marcia to transition over to being natural. But being natural had its goals as well.

Being black was beginning to trend all over social media. There were black women going natural, black men growing out their beards, dashikis, wooden jewelry, and silhouettes of Africa everywhere. By this point in Marcia’s life she had connected the insecurities of her appearance to her blackness. When it concerned health or biological issues, she adjusted. Her acne from high school cleared, her braces were taken off her during her first semester in college and she loved picking out frames for her glasses. But Marcia had realized her obsession with her came from a deeply rooted physiological issue. She felt like she wasn’t enough. Even when Marcia decided to go natural she decided to transition out of the relaxer by not reapplying the chemical and cutting small amounts of straight hair off while her natural hair grew out. She used curling products and no heat, but it still wasn’t enough. She wanted big hair like the natural women on social media. It just looked good. More hair meant more beautiful. Well so she thought.

In middle school, Marcia wanted straight hair because it looked good, but something was happening. In middle school Marcia was unconsciously introduced to being exotic. Many girls during that time were proudly exclaiming their heritage mostly of Caribbean or Latin decent. Marcia was just African American. Something that didn’t mean anything until she heard things like “What are you? That’s it? Where is your family from? Nowhere else? You’re not mixed with anything? Oh wow.” No one ever just wanted to be African American or rather “just black,” and a sign of being something more was usually shown by having more hair, and that equaled beauty. Marcia realized when she wanted more hair she wanted more than just beauty, she wanted to be more than just black.

“Are you ready?” a soft voice from behind her asked.

Marcia took a deep breath, nodded her head and closed her eyes. She could hear a light buzzing sound and the first chunk of dark brown coily fro rolled down the side of her face and onto the floor.