I am [not] my hair

I never thought I really bought into the myths about natural black hair. It was never ugly to me. Just something slightly enigmatic...like a nose ring.
I gradually, then suddenly, grew tired of treating my hair with chemicals to make it do something it was never going to do anyway; be long, silky and flowing.
It was simply an acceptance. Not of Afrocentrism, but of the futility of punishing my hair for growing a certain way. Much like a mother who finally accepts that her daughter is gay and stops setting up dates for her.
I stopped. Cold-turkey.

But today, bored with my mid-sized 'fro, I decided to straighten it with a flat-iron.
An hour and a half later, I actually SAW myself in the mirror, the one I had been staring at the whole time. Through a wispy cloud of scorched hair smoke, I saw what I was doing.
Straightening my hair because I thought my honey would like it better. Straightening my hair to say "See, it's not really as short as it looks!" Pulling, combing and burning my hair to prove that it could still be long, silky and flowing.
I touched a handful of pressed hair. It crackled in my fingers.

My daughter, who had been playing "beauty shop" with her dolls on my bed, poked her head into the bathroom.
"Mommy, I like your bangs."
I frowned through them.
"Feel it," I said.
She petted a flattened place on my head.
"It's kinda rough."
Yes, this whole thing is kinda rough, I thought.
"What about this part?" I guided her hand to an unpressed section.
"It's floofy!"

I got in the shower and washed away over an hour's worth of work, twenty-something years of bewilderment and centuries of disdain.

It felt...natural.