How I Got Over (A Hair Raising Tale)

Last year about this time I cut out my locs. It was a decision I came to after months of deliberation. They hung down my back and fell to my waist right at my hips. They had become weighty and no matter what style I put them in my neck could find no relief. So, after 5 years of growth I cut my very long, very beautiful locs. I felt liberated; free!
Soon after cutting them I began to realize what had actually transpired in my life over the 5 years I had been growing my locs. I initially started locking because I was going through a personal transition and wanted a physical representation of what I was going through emotionally and psychologically. I was becoming someone new and wanted to look different.
During that time of transition in my life I grew immensely. And I'm sure by now most of us know that growth is rarely achieved in comfort. I actually experienced more discomfort than I had ever in my life. I faced my fears in a way that allowed me to see passed my own facade and embraced the fact that I actually had fears. I dealt with loss of people, places, things and ideas. I lost confidence and hope and found them all again in the course of those 5 yrs. And my dreams once vibrant dimmed with deference. But at the end of it all I felt stronger, more equipped and renewed in hope that all things were possible. It was at this point the locs became more than I could bear. So I cut them to release myself from all the weight of self doubt that had plagued me for all those years. But when I decided to let go of them I also decided I wouldn't just cut it all away.
So I painstakingly raked out each loc over the course of two weeks. Was my hair fragile and damaged after this process? Of course it was. But I retained enough hair to compliment me in the way I needed physically; and with it the lessons hard learned in the preceding years. Day by day I nurtured my hair and my confidence back to fullness understanding that both could be restored.
Once again I stand at the precipice of change but this time there is something so wonderfully inspiring about it. I feel that full body charge that comes from knowing you are following your own path and it’s the right one for you. AND I miss my locs.
I am glad I let them go. Letting go of them allowed me to shift energy and release weight. It allowed me to embrace the me I birthed after so many nights of labor; the new, shining me full of the hope of youth and the wisdom of experience; the me who for the first time ever is as close to whole as she has ever been. With that wholeness I embark on a new “locking” journey.
This time I start the journey understanding the divinity within. I journey with the wide-eyed enthusiasm often saved for youth. I journey with the wisdom of the sages. I journey understanding my unique place in the schema of humanity and joyfully embracing it. This time what weighed me down, will be the symbol of my meteoric rise.
So this weekend while some work to be THE fright of the night. And still others observe the holiness that abounds. I will be celebrating the holy triumph over my own fears by restarting my locs. I am starting them myself just as I did before. This time as I twist I will smile at all that is wonderful and right in my life and set the tone for more positivity to come. I feel so grateful for my hair that has suffered through all my many incarnations always returning for the next go round.
I know some might say this is a “whole lot over some hair do!” But it is not so much about the hairdo as the place and space in time it has represented. I am not celebrating my hair as much as I am celebrating overcoming. I now understand the old gospel song a little bit better. “My soul looks back and wonders how I got over.” That doesn’t just happen on the other side. It happens in the very here and now. And when it does you must take the time to acknowledge it. So, that next time around you won’t have to wonder…You will have full understanding that it is your divine nature to be an Overcomer.