Eight things you'll only understand if you have really, really curly hair.

I am my hair. There is no me, there is only hair.

Over the years, my mountainous, curvaceous and uncontrollable locks have grown and grown until there is just… only hair. If I die a sudden mysterious death, chances are I will have choked on a strand of my hair in my sleep.

Me at birth. Just playing - it's my cousin in a wig. 

My hair is both a blessing and a curse. But mostly a curse. The only real advantage I’ve noticed in my 18 years is the impressive ability for people to identify me a mile away just from seeing the back of my head. I could never be a successful undercover cop.

So this is me over the stages of my life. Or should I say this is my hair during childhood and adolescence.

It looks fairly manageable, right? Wrong. It doesn’t look too bad! Wrong again. It’s so cool!!! Oh so very wrong.

Listen: Are your nipples in fashion? (Post continues after audio.) 

So here I am to lay down some facts, for everyone who ever told me how ‘cool’, ‘amazing’, or ‘beautiful’ my hair is. How ‘lucky’ I am.

I love you mum and dad, but these are the reasons I’m not appreciative of the hair I was burdened with.

1. Why can't I be pretty in the mornings?

Okay so I’m very aware looks aren’t everything. But just for once, I’d like to wake up without a birds nest on top of my head. Without a couple extra dreadlocks that have formed through the night. Without hair all over my pillow. I just wanna look like a Disney princess for one morning!

Me on a good morning. 

2. The wind and I will never be friends.

The wind and I have had a turbulent relationship over the years, and my main issue with the wind is its inability to let me wear dresses and skirts in the city… but, wind also doesn’t really like my hair. Can’t I just have one nice photo please?

Perhaps you can imagine the photo taking process for me.

3. Gravity is a myth.

And god I wish it wasn’t. But my hair does this REALLY COOL thing where it just… defies physics?

Magic. 

4. Eating my own hair.

I’ve actually grown accustomed to the taste of my own hair. Maybe it’s all the product that makes it so tasty, but I’d take it over capsicum any day. It seems impossible for me to open my mouth without some hair getting in there. I’m easy to blame when friends find distinct brown curls in their meals. I’m sorry.

A cheeky taste.

5. No, I don’t brush my hair.

It’s not because I don’t want to, it sounds fun, but it’s painful and...this happens…

There’s just so much. I had to help my hairdresser get through it all. 

6. The. Freaking. Dreadlocks.

I'll honestly wake up in the morning, after going to bed with combed washed yummy hair, and then BAM there's two or three dreadlocks forming somewhere in my beast of hair. Sometimes I just give up, but that leads to serious actual dreadlocks that I have to cut out.

 The aftermath of leaving it uncombed for one month. 

7. My teenage identity crisis.

My identity has become my hair. Most photos, there is no me, only hair. I am a faceless, hairy entity, swallowing up my victims in the abyss of curly hair. I could quite easily pull a Sia and hide my face for eternity.

Who am I if not my hair?

8. It takes about 2 hours to straighten.

God bless my hairdresser, because it takes a long time to straighten out these locks if I ever am that way inclined. People literally don’t recognise me with straight hair. My phone identifies straight-hair-me and curly-hair-me as two different people. It only fuels my identity crisis.

Bit narcissistic to add this but its 2017.

Maybe I just wanted an avenue to complain. But maybe now you can finally understand why us curly haired people have it so hard.