The Long Version

*note this used to be my old about me until I realized this was more of a hair history post about me so for some it may be a re-read so let me save you some time before you start lol 🙂

This blog started out as a place to document my transition from relaxed back to natural hair. I noticed there were an abundance of hair blogs for either relaxed heads or natural heads but not so many for ma long term transitioners. From there Forever As I Am was born to help spread and maintain my positivity & love towards natural hair.

I will come right out and say it now, I am a huge wuss when it comes to big chopping. I used to cry when my mom would cut my split ends because I thought she was making my hair short lol but anyway, I completely commend, admire, and respect every lady who has had the courage to see it through. I plan on transitioning for 2 years or until I have around APL – BSL of natural texture.

When I first began my healthy hair journey, I pretty much was lost. I mean had been doing my own hair since I was about 13. ( you know black parents, can’t let you do it yourself out of fear you’ll be looking a hot mess.)

Side Note: To be honest, I really don’t like depending on other people to do my hair ever., like even my own mama lol. I hate having to pay other people ridiculous amounts of money, having to look crazy until they’re ready for you, and everything else sucky that comes along with depending on other people for your hair. Needless to say I became self “hair” reliant early on and made a shit ton of mistakes along the way, from bleaching to dying and relaxing over bleach and then straightening that! Oh gawd, I’m surprised I even have hair left, I did everything wrong keep it G, but my shit was laaaaiiddd ya feel me? XD

Where were we? But yea, I never really knew how to properly take care of my hair until recently. At the start, I felt foolish for knowing so very little about the hair that grew out of my own head, but could do a flawless weave no problem. The fact that I could style and rock someone else’s hair better than my own didn’t sit too well with me. It made me think, why am I doing this? What would I do if relaxers or weaves didn’t exist? And At that point i really didn’t know, but all I knew was this weave dependency needed to stop. It was ruining my hair and my pockets, y’all know, that shit can get expensive. Lol

From then on I made up my mind to ditch the extensions and start doing me. I won’t lie, I was a bit apprehensive and afraid at first, having the “what will people think” & “what will they say?” Thoughts but then all of a sudden, the “fuck it” kicked in. From that moment on I decided to stop caring about what people may think or say because at the end of the day they are just background people in my life, extras if you will lol & their opinion really doesn’t matter unless I let it. The healthy decision had been made for me and my hair in that moment.

At the start I began experimenting with different styles, even though left the weave game I still longed for length that my then damaged apl hair wasn’t giving me. As a kid I would regularly get braids so I went back to that. I didn’t want just any three strand boring braids tho, I wanted something more, something awesome, some super long, super ratchetesque, hood rat from the movie Friday braids!!! lol nah Jk, but I did want them pretty long. ( all before the solange long braid craze *eye roll* ) and came across Senegalese twists. Within that night, I learned how to do them and by the end of the week I had my long ass braids.

I felt like black Rapunzel. I loved them. People loved them.

But they were heavy. Heavy as fuck. So I took em down and did a more reasonable length set. Senegalese twists got me through the first couple months of my hhj, and bought me major time to learn more about my hair and find some cute styles.

As all the information poured in all I could think is , “Wow. I had been being misinformed on how to properly take care of my hair my whole life,. No wonder my hair was breaking off I’m doing everything wrong! & then it changed to why was no one telling me these things!? I felt as if I had stumbled upon a whoooolllleeeee neeewwww wooooorld *cue Aladdin song* then I got to thinking, if I was this late on finding this stuff out, how many more people are there out there like me?that just don’t know but want long healthy hair too? How many other women are afraid to big chop and would rather do a long term transition? How do I take care of my transitioning hair? How? How? What? How? Howw!?

The questions rolled in.

X____X

So I made this page to learn to love and accept my hair and myself as I am.

(Pretty much based on acceptance and progress.)

Also to document my own trails and tribulations as I take on this lifelong educational journey to find out more about myself and my hair. & Finally with the hopes of inspiring other women to love themselves the way they should and to share some good insight and useful hair tips with other transitioning curlies along the way!

Be forever you.

– Asia ❤