Just Another Fayette-villain

Me, Myself, and My Hair

Like most black women, I have had a complicated relationship with my hair for most of my life. My hair is been styled in so many ways, thankfully most of them in the 90’s before camera phones and digital cameras were as a common to catch any of my bad decisions. I have shaved my head, permed my hair, had various types of extensions, dreadlocks, and currently it’s natural.

When I was a small child, I don’t remember caring about it much other than preferring my aunt over my grandmother to braid my hair because I was super tender headed and my grandmother braided too tight. I was cured of my tender headed-ness by a hairdresser I had after we moved to AR. Talk about a tight braid! I discovered years later that she never knew I was tender headed, otherwise she would have gone easier on me.

My hair has never grown very quickly and my own hair has never been longer than shoulder length (when I had dreadlocks). Otherwise it’s usually bob length. Most of my problem is that my hair grows pretty slowly and I also have breakage issues. All I have ever wanted is my hair to be long enough to put in a ponytail without having to use booby pins or hair clips to keep it all up.

While I long for longer hair, I also like to change my hair pretty frequently. The longest I had ever had a single hairstyle or cut is when I had dreadlocks. That lasted 6 years. In addition to my many hairstyles, I have dyed my hair most of the colors in the rainbow, starting when I was 11. My natural hair color is a dark brown though I’ve been dying it black for the last few years.

I have been really struggling lately not to significantly change my hair. My current goal is to wait until after I get married in October. I really want some waist length box braids but that’s expensive and since we’re mostly paying for the wedding ourselves, it’s a non necessary expense that I just can’t justify. My other thought it to cut my hair- short on the sides and longish on top. I think it would be a little easier to manage and since it would an actual hairstyle, theoretically easier to maintain. Or I may give myself up to the mercy of a hairdresser.

I’ll keep collecting ideas but for now, it’s just daydreaming until October.

• 1 month ago
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I & I Adventures Vol. 7: My Future Husband

Valentine’s Day has never been my favorite holiday but over the past several years I have had a few not so great Valentine’s. I had a guy I had been dating break up with me after I cooked him dinner and we watched a movie. I got my wisdom teeth out a few days before (which actually wasn’t too bad because I was single and on drugs). Last year, the guy I was dating told me on Valentine’s Day that he was thinking about getting back together with his ex. So suffice to say, it’s a holiday that I don’t care for too much.

He knew that I’ve had bad Valentine’s Days’ and since this was our first together, made extra effort. We went to dinner two days after the official day because I had practice and couldn’t miss since we had a game that weekend. He had made reservations at this new Italian restaurant we’ve been meaning to try http://vetro1925.com/. I had an inkling the week before that he might be proposing soon and I over-thought it in excruciating detail prior to us going out for dinner but somehow I forgot all of that and was just enjoying my evening. After dinner, we went for a walk around the square. We were about to head back to the car and he paused and fumbled in his pocket. I was still totally clueless at this point. Then he got down on one knee and proposed.

Though I thought I might be down with eloping, I really don’t know what I was thinking. Of course I’m having a wedding. I’m the only girl of my siblings and first cousins and I don’t think my family would have let me get away with it. And I’ve always wanted a wedding. Not necessarily something big and crazy but an actual wedding where I can share this amazing and wonderful thing that somehow became my life with my family and friends.

Sometimes I wonder how I even got to this place. There were times I never thought I would meet anyone who I could even contemplate marrying and having kids with. Apparently the universe and the stars aligned because I could not even dream up someone who is as perfect for me as he is. We’re kind of ridiculous together. And I enjoy every second of it.

• 2 months ago
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Wedding. Marriage. And Everyone Else.

So while my man and I have discussed marriage and know we want to get married to each other in the near future (and by near future I mean in the next two years) though he hasn’t actually proposed yet, sometimes the thought of actually having a wedding scares me.

We both know lots of people and have big families so it will be hard to whittle it down to a smaller list. Everyone has their opinions and while people say that a wedding is not just about the bride and groom but also making sure their guests have a good time and blah blah blah, I just don’t care about everyone else and what they want.

In a perfect world I would have thousands of dollars to spend to make both me and everyone else happy but guess what? The world’s not perfect, something that I have always been well aware of. It kind of makes me want to elope even though I said I would never do that……but I learned a LONG time ago that there are very few things one can say never about.

• 4 months ago
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I & I Adventures Vol. 6: Our Hypothetical Future Life

I had been on this one dating website, OkCupid, off and on for a few years. I had equally bad luck there as anywhere else. I had just been broken up up with by a guy I had been seeing for a few weeks. It was a relief because then I didn’t have to breakup with him.

The first email I got was a compliment on my tattoos. We emailed all day that first day and then met 4 days later. I was slightly apprehensive, as always when meeting someone new. Online chemistry is not always chemistry in real life. He was bigger than I thought he would be, quiet, with a nice smile. I babbled on like I do when I’m nervous and he mostly just nodded and smiled. I liked him though. I invited him to my game the following night and he came. My home team won the championship that night so I was in a pretty good mood. He met most of my derby friends and at the end of the night, he won me a pink dinosaur out of the claw machine. It still sits on my nightstand.

Our first real date was a Naturals game. I didn’t dress warmly enough and he let me wear his button up shirt. I don’t remember details of when we started spending every day together but I knew that this one was different.

I was in denial about being in love with him for awhile. A month after we met, at my niece’s birthday party, her grandmother asked me about him. I said I was sliding down the slope but digging in my heels.

We occasionally (frequently) talked about our hypothetical future life- the things we would like to do later in our life, things I will not allow him to name our children, how our families would interact.

Sometimes I did (and do) wonder how I got so lucky. I know I’m not easy to handle but I think maybe I’m not as bad as I’ve let myself think I am. I deserve to be happy. I deserve someone wonderful. And he agrees.

• 7 months ago
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