My Husband, My Hair

Sooo... I'm pretty sure my husband hates my haircut.

He hasn't come right out and said it, but I'm pretty sure he does, and here's how I know: I emailed him a photo last Tuesday, the day I got it cut, and it took him till this past Sunday to look at it. And then when I asked him what he thought, he said that it was, "interesting" and then committed a total cardinal sin by saying, "You have sort of an Angela-Davis-y thing going on."

I'm pretty sick of comparisons of my hair with back-in-the-day Angela Davis. It's irritating to me because she's not the only black woman with natural hair and, well, totally different generation and all that.

Then, two days ago when he picked me up at LAX, he didn't say ANYTHING about my hair the whole hour-long ride home through rush hour traffic. Talk about awkward! It was so odd that I found myself wanting to laugh over his obvious discomfort with my appearance. We hung out at home for an hour before I asked him what he thought about the elephant in the room. He says, "Well, it looks better than I thought it would," and then, reluctantly, "If you like it, then I like it."

Uh, okaay, player. That's about the safest, most neutral answer anyone who really hates a hairdo could give unless they just flat out lied and said, "I think it's beautiful!" I mean, if your wife showed up after five weeks with a good 10-12 inches of hair missing from her head, wouldn't you have something more to say than that?

I'll admit, when I stepped back and thought about it, my feelings were a little hurt by all this ambivalence and reluctance to even ask me about the process of getting it cut. You don't have to like it but at least ask me about what it was like to get it cut. But no, he pretty much has disengaged from the whole subject, and to be fair, I think it's hard for him. He hasn't spent all the time thinking about all the reasons to cut out the chemicals. And, he'll be the first to admit that he's been brainwashed by society into believing that long and straight hair is more attractive. He jokingly calls his mentality about hair the "curse of the black man".

Indeed, we've had countless conversations about the proliferation of lighter skin and long hair in every single R&B or hip-hop video, and that's from day one before the corporations totally took over the music and the associated imagery. Plus, in our personal lives, there's the constant messages we've been hearing since we were children. Nappy is not happy, feminine, desirable or beautiful. Sure, there may be the beginnings of a shift away from this sort of thinking over the past few years, but that doesn't erase all the years of cultural brainwashing we've both been exposed to.

To make it all even more confusing, despite his "brainwashing", he's previously said he understands all the reasons why I stopped straightening my hair. I realize now though that he thought it was just about me hating my previous hairdresser. So, I think in theory he only slightly understands. And in practice... well, I think he rather wishes someone else was the one putting the natural hair thing into practice. He just won't say it directly.

Ultimately, this is alright because I didn't cut my hair for him or to please him. It's about being true to myself, being a good role model for my boys, and acknowledging that there's nothing bad about what God created. And, I'm still figuring out how to wear it. There are "good" hair days and then totally jacked up ones, like yesterday. Oh, yesterday was a mess. My hair does not like this dry Los Angeles air at all!

Really though, it's all got me to thinking about how when you marry someone, their appearance is obviously going to change over the long years you spend together, and there's not really a whole lot you can do about those changes. You can encourage someone to take care of them themselves mentally, spiritually and physically and of course, you do those things for yourself. Regardless, you roll with it or you don't. But how many of our other halves are brave enough to say, "I don't like your haircut," or, "Yes, I definitely think you look fat in that outfit," when we ask for their opinion?

It also reminds me of the silly questions my friends and I used to ask guys twenty years ago, stuff like, "Would you still love me if I gained 100 pounds," and "Would you still love me if I got hit by a car and became a quadriplegic. Back then, the guy would honestly say, "Oh hell no!" and we'd all laugh about it together because it was all so stupid, the question, the answer, the reason we were sitting next to each other in the first place.

But when you're married, those sort of questions become about other things, they become deeper, and perhaps we're sometimes both afraid to give and receive the answers.