Unboxing

A completely free Friday night. Two Netflix docu-series to binge watch. A trash bag, a pair of scissors, a comb and a conditioner. This is what I need to take my box braids out. I start by cutting my 70 braids to a length right above my breast. Unbraid one box braid until my natural hair is freed and the synthetic hair falls between my index, middle finger and thumb. I repeat the process for the remaining 69 braids.  

This six to seven hour tedious process is one in which I absolutely dread every two months. It’s a component of my life that I don’t discuss or publicize—it’s too weird to explain. I go off the grid until I get my braids redone the following Saturday afternoon. It’s my way of shielding the appearance of my incredibly thick, coiled natural hair that may be confusing considering my everyday, staple style of box braids. This time around, however, in quarantine, I wouldn’t have a choice. I had to grow to love a new version of myself that I persistently avoided. 

Before returning home, I was starting to feel more confident with my boldness—my voice, my identity, my style. Especially in Northwestern’s racially homogenous settings, I was learning how to fearlessly express my individuality, ultimately discovering and prioritizing spaces and people who I could do this with. This evolving confident energy was rather disrupted, forcing me to re-evaluate how I can continue to express myself without the proximity to the spaces and people I was growing with. 

 I felt mentally scrambled. I was living solely with my mother and sister, navigating life without my father as he and my mother decided to go their separate ways, while also facing the unknown and the hysteria of the pandemic. I needed to recenter myself, assess who I was becoming and what I needed to prioritize. 

I then stumbled upon my grey NorthFace backpack that somehow escaped under my bed, ultimately realizing I packed two books that were left on my shelf in my dorm since the beginning of winter quarter: Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Water Dancer and Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism. 

Newport’s guide to “choosing a focused life in a noisy world,” seemed almost too applicable to my mental state. He preaches “Digital Minimalism,” a philosophy of “technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then you happily miss out on everything else.” 

I wanted to focus on how I could bring such philosophy into my reality outside of the superficial world that is technology and social media. I started to focus on the values that are at my core: authenticity, creativity, empathy, intimacy, innovation and individuality. 

In that, I continued to actively prioritize the people that made me feel like I could evolve, extracting the activities that I found would not build me to be the best version of myself. Taking more time for myself to breathe and avoid my perfectionist tendencies, often finding myself practicing and recording Tik Toks with my 22-year-old sister instead of finishing a homework assignment or profusely crying to Michelle Obama’s Netflix documentary Becoming and not calling myself dramatic when I did so. Realizing and reflecting upon my rawness, journaling it and discussing it with those who matter in my life so that I don’t feel so alone and isolated has helped me. 

And then I did the unthinkable. Quarantined indefinitely, I was forced to confront my hair. There was no other choice. I had to take out my braids. 

My braids—I long believed—were my statement. I fell in love with getting braids the summer going into my senior year of high school. I was fascinated with the versatility of the styles—micro or jumbo, platinum blonde or reddish-brown—and wanted to explore. However, the length, the liberation and the uniqueness my braids offered me allowed me to feel comfortable in a confidence that was ultimately false. The way it differentiated me in my sorority’s pledge class composite that proudly stands in the entryway of the distinguished house. The way it allowed me to escape from the stress I thought would result from training my natural curls, and therefore, who I truly am at my core. It allowed me to subconsciously disregard the value I uphold the most and encourage people to practice the most: authenticity. 

What I didn’t realize was that taking out my braids and getting to know my natural, 4b textured hair would not stress me out, rather every night I’ve been able to spend detangling it has created an alone time for myself where I’m able to reflect about life and my continuing evolution, ultimately realizing that this time has proved that I am capable of more than I expected of myself. 

Approximately 11 weeks ago, my life dramatically shifted. Losing my sense of place and my dad’s presence had the opportunity to damage the person who I’ve been evolving into. However, accepting this new era, and learning how to feel, is my silver-lining during such an unthinkable time.