Best. Day. Ever. #31WriteNow

Today I was at work – minding my own business because I finished putting up my classroom decorations and completing my lesson plans – when I realized that my phone battery was getting low and decided to put it on the charger while I went to a round of afternoon meetings. I come back about an hour or so later to several notifications on my phone. I look at the various social media sites and see that I have a message from Patricia, the owner of GlobalCouture, a wonderful website that is about loving your own hair (She’d interviewed me earlier this summer). Her message said, “I have a surprise for you!!! You are featured on Curlynikki.com today!!!”

Shut. The. Front. Door.

I started pulling up everything I could. I was ecstatic. I’ve talked about my hair and the natural hair community here before, but I’ve never focused on this as a natural hair blog. This is just my way of combining my nerdy-fandom, love of writing, weirdly great memory, and favorite show in a therapeutic way. When I saw my feature, I can imagine how Carrie might’ve felt when she met her two fans in Paris (Season Season, Part 2, “An American Girl in Paris – part deux”). She was in a foreign land, wanting a bit of normal, and unknowingly walked into something that made her really happy.

When I saw my feature, I was so happy I yelled in my classroom, ran into the hallway to tell someone, but no one would know what I was talking about (Which is what I actually screamed, lol). That’s when I realized that most of my close friends either live away, moved away, or aren’t as easily accessible due to life changes. None of this is a bad thing, it’s just different. Similar to Carrie, she was excited to see her book in a window with no one with whom to share her glee. She had Petrovsky, but he didn’t understand the same way that her friends would.

I’m happy to have several differences from Carrie. My man is no Petrovsky, that’s for sure. He understood and was happy for me. And, my friends are a phone call away and I don’t even need a calling card. 😉 All in all…that’s a blessing. And I’m pretty sure it’s high on the non-romantic-interest best days ever of 2013.

Have you had a day that you would consider epic? What happened?

Love,

-V

How much work is too much?

Whenever I go to the grocery store, it is almost a definite that someone will stop me about my hair. They would say some variation of, “Oh my gosh! I love your hair. What do you do to it? What products do you use? I’m natural, but I’m not sure what I need to do.” I share my hair regimen, and I can see the looks on their faces change from “Oh wow” to “Nuh unh.” 4/5 of the time, I hear this phrase:

“Oh wow. Yeah…that’s too much work for me.”

I normally shrug and say, “Well, it works for me.” It has happened so much that I don’t pay it too much attention. It always reminds me of something I saw on a Kevin Hart behind the scenes video. He and his friends say this as a sort of call and response thing: “Everybody wanna be famous…don’t nobody wanna put the work in.” I would chuckle to myself, and keep it moving.

Then, as I was in the shower, hair twisted, shampooing (only my scalp) section by section, drenching with conditioner, finger detangling, and thinking of the black tea rinse I wanted to do, something occurred to me: The same is true of relationships. Everyone wants their Mr. Big, but nobody wants to have to beat him with flowers. For any individual, how much work is too much?

Sometimes, the work for some is at the beginning with appearance. He doesn’t look like you want him too. He’s too _______. If Charlotte had felt that way, she never would have been with Harry, who is arguably (though not really) the best husband on the series. Sometimes, the work is in the middle. Personality differences, disagreements, and/or compromises. The entire Steve and Miranda relationship is based on that premise. Sometimes she did the work; sometimes it was him; either way, it got done. If the work is at the end, like Samantha and Smith, you’re giving the old college try to make sure you’ve exhausted all possibilities before calling it out. But what if your work is like Carrie and Big…all throughout? Is she just stupid for not leaving sooner? Or did her perseverance finally award her the prize?

On VerySmartBrothas.com, there was a post about why women are overly loyal.My friends and I had a conversation about it, and one said, “Most women don’t give up easily…but we need not to if we are going to be “overloyal” mothers to our daughters and sons (not to create needy daughters or mama’s boys though). So I guess we gotta learn to give up on people early in the game lol??” Her sarcasm, (which I love…it’s one of the reasons why we’re friends) rings very true. Where is the line? I know it may be fine, but can we see it? Would it be dumb to think that something we’re not doing in practice (being loyal/working in relationships) will happen in the game (marriage to divorce)?

Put it like this…I like the outcome of my hair styling sessions. I’m willing to put it the work when the outcome is what it is. BUT, if (God forbid) a fire catches my hair a la Michael Jackson…no amount of deep conditioner can help that. I’m going to have to cut this ish off.

What say you? How much work is too much?

Love,

–V