With Love, Thelms

It’s been a loong time, looooong time comin’ and I knoooow change gone come. 

If you watched Daddy’s Little Girls then you know exactly where that’s from. I figured the song was more than appropriate for today’s post. After all, it’s been a loooong time since I got braids, but change sure has come around. 10 freaking years if we’re being specific. So without further ado, let’s jump in today’s post: Why I got Braids After 10 years.

Here’s a bit of backstory.

I used to get braids all the time as a child. It was easy up keep for a little girl who didn’t know much about hair. Of course, it also didn’t hurt that it required little to no effort from my mom in the morning before school.

Braids were my thing y’all. I loved them that much.

However, what I didn’t love was the process it took just to get them done. For starters, the lady who did my braids had an issue with being on time. She was always late. I’m talking we would set an appointment with her for Saturday at 9 am.. She wouldn’t ever begin till hours had passed. Talk about a damn drag. My mom and I would always arrive on time, practically camped out at her house. Waiting for her to either let us in or return from wherever she skedaddled off to.

Another aspect of braids that I didn’t love?

The time it took to get them done. Y’all. I would lose most of my day over having to get my freaking hair done. To someone who struggled with being patient that alone was a death sentence. Listen. My patience has never been a strong suit of mine. Especially when it comes to sitting in one place uncomfortably (an environment that isn’t my own), for hours on end.  Which is exactly what getting braids done encompasses. A lot of sitting and even more waiting.

Needless to say, the idea of having to get my braids done always put a bad taste in my mouth.

I promised myself at 14 when I was able to decide, I would never get braids again. Knowing it would save me from the turmoil my inability to be patient would cause.

However, at the end of last year I began contemplating doing the very thing I’d promised myself I’d never do again.

Getting braids.

As I ironed out the goals I wished to accomplish in the new year, my pen hovered over two parts of my list.

Exercising patience more often. 

Trying new things in all parts of my life. 

I pondered over how I could initiate these particular things at the start of the new year and it hit me almost instantaneously.

Getting braids after 10 years just might do the trick. For one, it would directly challenge me to exercise patience. Remember how I said the worst part of getting braids was the long sitting I couldn’t stand? Secondly, doing so would directly address my attempt to try new things. After 10 years, I can only assume that getting braids would be “new” for me. Ya know?

Almost 6 hours and a face lift (braids tend to have that effect) later, and I had accomplished what I set out to accomplish.

It also didn’t hurt that I have been getting flooded with compliments since taking the plunge… 10 years later.

BRB as the younger me squeals with excitement,

Thelms