There are few things more humbling than realizing your childhood hair was being managed by people who absolutely did not know what they were dealing with.

Curly-haired people from the 70’s and 80’s know exactly what I mean.

Back then, nobody knew what to do with curls.

Not parents.
Not hairdressers.
Not society.

My mom's entire strategy seemed to be:
​“Let's brush it aggressively and hope for the best.”

Let me rewind to the late 70's Reader.

My mom used to wash my hair with me standing on a chair, leaning over the kitchen sink.

I hated every second of it.

The water in the eyes.
The shampoo running down my forehead.
The negotiations.
The tears.

The only not-so-terrible memory I have of hair washing days is of a tiny figurine I would play with while my mom fought the good fight of clean hair.

And then came the brushing.

No conditioner.
No detangler.
No leave-in cream.
No fancy curl products.

I genuinely don’t even know if conditioner existed back then but it certainly didn't in our household. If it did exist, it was apparently reserved for more important situations.

My situation looked a lot like this: an angry mom with a hairbrush. 🪮

The silver lining on hair washing days... my hair was brushed while wet.

As for every other day? Oh, you better believe my curly hair was dry brushed.

Which brings me to The Family Portrait.

You know the kind.

Church basement photography session.
Fancy dresses with approximately 4,700 unnecessary ruffles.
Everyone standing awkwardly beside fake columns and ferns.

Blue sash around my waist that looked like it belonged on a decorative toilet paper roll.

My stepdad — who is not a tall man — was standing on some kind of hidden platform in the back so he’d appear taller in the photo.

And me?

Front and centre.
Dry-brushed curly frizzy hair.

Friends.

My hair formed a perfect triangle. 🔺

Not soft curls.
Not volume.
Not “beachy waves.”

A triangle. 🔼

The kind of hair that looked like someone rubbed a balloon on my head for ten straight minutes and then said,
​“Yep. Nailed it.”

And this photo?
This deeply unfortunate visual document?

Hung at the bottom of our stairs for YEARS.

Where you’d walk by it twenty times a day.

Every morning:
​triangle hair. 🚩

Every evening:
​triangle hair. 🔻

Every family gathering:
​triangle hair 📐 silently monitoring the room.

I had this brilliant dumb idea last week and called my mom to see if she could put her hands on The Family Portrait.

After much digging, she found it. (I was hoping she had thrown it out)

You see why I wanted straight hair sooooo badly?

My sister used to get perms because she wanted curls, while I was over here looking like a startled shrub 🌳 just wishing I had the option to run a brush through my hair without creating a weather system around my head.

And then... my entire life changed during a trip to my grandparents’ house.

They had Pert Plus. 🎉

The two-in-one shampoo and conditioner.

I know.
Luxury.

I still remember brushing my hair after using it and thinking:

…why is this easy?

Why is the brush moving through my hair without resistance?

Turns out curly hair was never the problem.

We were just fighting it instead of working WITH IT.

And somewhere in the middle of a walk last week, I started thinking about how often we treat our health and wellness the exact same way my curls were treated back then.

Something gets a little messy, a little imperfect, a little not according to plan… and instead of grabbing the Pert Plus, we panic and start yanking harder.

We fight it.

One cookie?
​Brush harder.

One missed workout?
​Attack the tangly mess with a fine tooth comb.

One weekend away?
​Keep pulling until the brush breaks. (Been there, done that. I do not recommend.)

Then you respond by tightening the rules even more.
More restriction.
More pressure.
More “being good.”
More trying to force life into something rigid and perfect.

Meanwhile your actual life is over there behaving like curly hair in humidity.

Completely uninterested in cooperating.

That’s the cycle you get trapped in:
perfect → mess up → screw it → restart Monday.

Over and over and over.

And most of the time, the problem isn’t the the cookie or the missed workout or the weekend away. (it’s not the curly hair either)​
​
It’s the story attached to it.

The guilt.
The drama.
The belief that one imperfect choice means you’ve suddenly transformed into a human raccoon digging through the garbage bin of failure.

Health/wellness/aging, gets a whole lot easier when you stop treating every choice like a crisis.

The people who feel the best long term usually aren’t the people obsessing over the little things.

They’ve just stopped fighting themselves all day long.

They've discovered the Pert Plus...

They walk.
They eat decent most of the time.
They enjoy dessert sometimes.
They move their bodies.
They keep going after imperfect days.

No dramatic restart required.

That’s what this week’s Walk With Me is all about:

Why we keep “starting over Monday” — and how simpler habits work better in real life than perfection ever will.

Grab your sneaks, join me on the trail and listen to the walk here.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to destroy the evidence of the Triangle Era.

Pray for me.

Nat - your curly-haired survivor of the Great Dry Brushing Years

​
P.S. when you’re ready, join Stride Series: The 30-Day Walking Program and let the habit of walking become your Pert Plus!