BSL: 5 Years Later

Bra strap length hair--or BSL; it was my only hair goal five years ago. It took me five long years and a lot of change in my hair to finally arrive at this length. Hang with me while I get my griot* on people!

5 years ago, I was relaxed and my hair was APL. All I wanted was BSL hair. Why shouldn't I want it? It was the next length in the natural progression. Sadly, I never made it to BSL. In fact I ended up with the back half of my hair breaking off due to excessive heat and hard dorm water. I can vividly remember my stylist back home lifting up my hair and asking with concern "Kayla, I don't understand. What happened?"

After a year of having hair all over my shirt and hiding the breakage with the top layer of my hair, I opted for an asymmetrical bob. The front was about neck length and the back was cut up to my nape. I loved the hair cut and most importantly, all of the breakage had been removed. My hair love affair was shortly lived. I went in for a trim and ended up with a completely different, chin length bob that I was not feeling.

Two years into my story's timeline I decided it was time to get serious about healthy hair care. I was determined to make this neck length bob into a shoulder length bob before I would eventually go natural. I felt that it would be easier to transition with shoulder length hair. That plan later changed when my hair made it half way down my neck and I asked myself "Why am I continuing to relax my hair when I will be cutting it off anyway?"

That was it--the "aha moment"! I transitioned for a year and a half and finally went fully natural in 2011. Since removing my relaxed ends, I have been natural for a little over a full year. I started at shoulder length and thought that I might realistically end the year at APL. I am amazed that I am ending at the beloved, the coveted, the long desired BSL.

The sky is the limit from here. My ultimate goal has always been MBL, but through research I found out that once you hit BSL and grow about another inch--the bottom of the bra--the stretch between Waist and BSL called MBL begins. That means that I will quickly claim MBL early in 2013 and may still be at MBL at the end of the year. Back when I was daydreaming, I thought that MBL would be soooo much longer than BSL when in reality it's not. I also thought it was a definite point but it is more of a "region" which is why some of the MBL ladies appear to have shorter hair than some others. Maybe I should aim for waist? If I can wait 5 years for BSL, I can wait however long THAT takes!

*People responsible for keeping tribal history and sharing in poems, songs, and storytelling.

                               




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