You know that feeling you get when you leave the hair salon with freshly styled hair. Your self-esteem is on fleek! There's not a cloud in the sky, birds seem to be singing a melodic song, people are laughing and carrying along. You look good and no one can steal your joy. I've been really wanting to cut my hair lately and start over. To me, my hair is damaged. From getting color and not treating it properly, to a severely malnourished diet, my strands always seem to be deprived of moisture. I went to the salon set on getting a haircut but somehow, someway, my stylist managed to speak life into my hair.Side bar: I won at Macy's. These Nine West shoes were originally $119 and I paid $20 for it. Look at God.My issues with my hair got me thinking about self-esteem and how as women, the way our hair looks directly affects how we feel about ourselves in that moment. Ladies, keep it real, when your hair isn't on point, you think you're ugly, right?? I mean, cancel life because...my hair isn't acting right today. I know you feel me. So how do we get to that happy medium where we don't allow our hair to define who we are or how we feel about ourselves? I AM NOT MY HAIR, remember? Easy. Stop giving a fuck. Maybe, just maybe, if we stopped trying to have Brazilian wavy hair and unrealistic hair length goals and just ACCEPT our hair as is, maybe it would flourish. How we feel about our hair is an inside job, you know? We have the power to change that.I never used to have serious confidence issues when it comes to hair but in the last year, it's really been a struggle. But I'm over it. Fuck it and let it do what it wants to do.Images by the lovely Christina of Tide & Bloom.