It's indeed just hair.

“It’s just hair. It’ll grow back.” I know. I really do. But for some reason, I’ve never liked hearing that. Maybe because when someone says it’s just hair, they’re only seeing the hair. They’re not seeing the three years behind it. They weren't there when I started growing it. They weren't there for all the conversations, the arguments, the explaining myself over and over again. They definitely weren't there when my mum got so concerned about it that she reported me to her pastor. My hair became a family matter. A pastor matter, apparently. And looking back, it’s almost funny. I was just a young guy growing his hair and somehow everybody had an opinion on what that meant about me. What will people say? People won't accept you like this. Is this how a young man is supposed to look? I heard all of it. And at some point I got tired of trying to explain that I wasn't trying to make some huge statement. I just liked my hair. I wanted to see it grow. I wanted to know what I'd look like if I actually let it become something. So I kept it. Then time started doing its thing. One year. Then another. Then suddenly I'm three years into this and I know way too much about my own hair. I know when it needs moisture. I know when I've overdone a product. I know what it looks like when it's behaving and what it looks like when it has decided to ruin my entire morning for absolutely no reason. I've watched it change. I've watched myself change with it. And somewhere in there, the hair stopped being this thing I was defending. It just became part of me. That's probably why what's happening now feels a little strange. My older siblings are keeping their hair too. And I won't lie, seeing that does something to me. Because I remember when I was the odd one. I remember being the one whose hair needed to be discussed. The one people were worried about. The one who supposedly needed to think about society and what people would say. Now I'm watching my own siblings grow theirs. One by one. And there's something almost funny about it. Like, so now we're doing this? I look at them sometimes and realize they've entered a stage I had to fight my way into. They're figuring out their own hair. Trying different things. Keeping it, shaping it, seeing what suits them. And I don't even know how to explain what that feels like. Because part of me is proud. Another part of me is just amused. And there's another part that quietly remembers how alone it felt being the first one to do something that nobody around you really understood. I don't think I inspired them. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. I'm not interested in turning it into that kind of story. But I know I went first. And maybe that's enough. I think that's what the hair means to me now. Not rebellion. Not masculinity. Not even looking good. Just choice. For a long time, it felt like there was already an image of what I was supposed to look like, and I was expected to fit into it without asking too many questions. Growing my hair was one of the first times I remember thinking, No. Let me see what happens if I choose for myself. And then I had to live with that choice. For three years. That's why “it'll grow back” doesn't really comfort me. Of course it will. But if I cut it, I don't get these three years back. I don't get the awkward beginning back. I don't get the stages where I hated how it looked. I don't get the random moments where I looked in the mirror and thought, damn, it's actually getting somewhere. I don't get this version of myself back either. And maybe that's why I've held onto it tightly. Not because hair is that important. It isn't. But sometimes something ordinary becomes attached to a part of your life that wasn't ordinary at all. The hair was there while I was becoming somebody else. It was there while my family was learning that I wasn't going to make every decision based on what would make them comfortable. And now, strangely enough, I'm watching my siblings make their own decisions too. They're finding their own versions of it. And I just sit there sometimes thinking about how funny life is. Three years ago, I was the problem child with the hair. Now everybody's hair is growing. Maybe that's what makes me appreciate the journey. I didn't need to convince everybody. I just needed to keep going long enough for it to stop being a debate. It became normal. It became mine. And maybe that's why I don't want somebody reducing it to “it's just hair.” Because they're right about the hair. They're wrong about the story.

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