to big chop or not to big chop?

As many of you know, I am on this healthy hair journey. I've stopped chemically straightening my hair or better known as relaxing/perming. This month marks one year since my last relaxer. Yay me! The original plan was to cut off my hair gradually as I embarked on my one year of transitioning from relaxed to natural hair. Well, things happened and I didn't cut or trim my hair as often as I would have liked. Actually, I can only remember trimming it once and then another time chopping a good 1.5 inches off during this last year.

Well, I've been watching tons of YouTube videos and reading hair blogs about all of these women just going into the bathroom and chopping their relaxed hair off. YouTube is the devil, haha! It gets me all hyped up and confident. I feel like I should be jumping up and down and screaming YEAH! Like Lil' Jon. So, after many weeks of contemplation I told my husband of my thoughts. I want to cut off my relaxed hair. It felt like an eternity before he responded. He slowly looked up at me from across the living room and spoke these two words... "That's stupid" hahahaha! I'm joking. He really said, "Do it!" And that's all I needed to hear. I was super excited. I think I feared his reaction to my drastic change if I did cut my hair. I was so worried about his thoughts that I forgot what this journey was really all about. We had discussed my plans last year and he understood what I was after. Why had I been so worried? So insecure? I marched upstairs to the bathroom and began snipping away!

Don't worry, I took plenty of pictures. As I took the scissors in my hand and cut away the first few strands, I felt liberated! I was joining all of those women on YouTube in that secret society of natural haired divas. HAHAHAHAHA! That feeling lasted all of 30 seconds. I looked in the mirror and realized what had been holding me back this whole time. It wasn't my husband, it was me. I wasn't ready. I've had short hair styles in the past, but I'm not mentally prepared for shorter hair right now. I let the hype overpower my plans. I wanted to long term transition and I will continue to do so. Now, I'll just transition with a huge piece chopped off in the back, lol. I will attempt to do more frequent trims to avoid such a huge cut later on. For now, I will continue styling my two textures and dreaming about my head full of natural hair. It will happen, but not a moment before I'm ready. Unless my husband cuts it off while I'm asleep. In that case, I'll be writing my next blog from my prison cell :)

Ciao!

Current length   

Stretched (right side)

Curl pattern before cutting 

what I cut off

after cutting (left side)

close up of curl pattern 

length of hair stretched