The Wild That Remains

"Your hair is so long now!"

"Do you curl your hair every day?"

These are the usual comments that I get now from people who have not met me in a while. And it's no surprise considering that for most of my life, I've had extremely short hair. Pixie cuts, shaved sides, undercuts, buzz cuts... You name it. How I used to look just two years ago and all the years before that is immensely different from how I look today: long, thick, curly hair that now falls just above my buttocks

When I was in primary school, my discipline headmistress walked past me in the hallway and said I looked like a shaggy dog. From then on, I do not recall a single time where I did not have short hair. The longest would be just past my shoulders, and even then I would spend a lot of time straightening it because I felt like my natural hair was unruly. It made me look untidy, unkempt. Like the shaggy dog my teacher once said I was.

Once I reached 30 years old, I can safely say that I have learned to embrace and care for my natural hair. It is, after all, one of the few things about me that reflects my lineage. On top of that, it was the same big, bold hair that my mother sported when she was younger too. It took a lot of unlearning, about myself and the world that I had built for myself, for me to reach this stage of love and acceptance.

Once I started learning to love my hair, there was something else that I wanted to love: my body hair. I have hairy arms and legs, and I like to believe for the most part that I accept this part of me. Shaving takes too much time anyway, so it was very obvious to me that the best way to get around this time-consuming act was to just... love my body. It's that simple. Right?

My mother used to laugh when I complained about my hairy legs. I would confide in her that I wanted them gone, that I wished I could have smooth skin like the other girls around me. And she would tell me that she used to have the same kind of legs when she was younger, that over time, the hair simply thinned and disappeared. I know she wasn’t lying, because I remember it.

Maybe that’s why, somewhere deep inside, not accepting this part of me feels like a kind of denial towards her. There’s nothing I want more than to keep my mother alive in this world, even if through me. So I thought, loving my own hair, on my head, on my body, is one of the ways in which I can honour her.

But few days ago, I found myself searching for home IPL treatments, researching ways I could, at least, semi-permanently remove my body hair. My mind started calculating the costs of creams, devices, razors... It almost drove me into a frenzy. So I decided to take a step back.

How is it that I always claim that I love myself the way I am, but here I am, feeling shame over having body hair and trying to find ways to remove it? Who am I trying to impress? And yet, even though I know that I should be self-loving and self-accepting, I still cannot help but feel the insecurity of wearing slit skirts that show off my leg hair. I tell myself I’m fine, that I’m evolved, that I don’t care. But when I look too long, shame still hums beneath my skin. This is unfeminine.

Every so often, my algorithm shows me Instagram reels of women who have accepted their body hair. I admire the women who walk bare-legged and unbothered. Goddesses in their softness, free in the wild forest of themselves. I cheer for them. I want to be one of them. And then I catch myself searching “how to remove body hair permanently”.

Sometimes I tell myself that shaving is self-care. That it’s for me. That I feel cleaner, lighter, more put-together. But deep down, I know I’m lying. It's not self-love. It's fear. Fear of being seen as untidy, unkempt, undesirable. Fear of being the woman who didn’t try hard enough to be presentable. It’s funny, really, because in so many other parts of my life I’ve outgrown that need for approval. I speak my mind. I live by my values. I stand firm in what I believe. And yet, this tiny, seemingly trivial thing still makes me flinch beneath other people’s gaze.

I can write essays about body autonomy and preach the gospel of self-acceptance, and still, the moment I touch my gritty legs, something in me folds. The old voice returns: You’d look better if you took care of that. So no, I’m not there yet. I’m not shaving out of love, but because I still want to be loved. I am still seeking validation from others in different ways. Somewhere inside me, a younger version of myself still believes that approval is a kind of safety.

I think that’s the hardest part: knowing better, but not yet feeling better. To hold both clarity and conditioning in the same breath. Some days I can laugh at it, this tug-of-war inside me. Other days, it exhausts me. I catch myself scolding the part of me that still cares what others think, as if shame could ever be healed by more shame. So I’m trying to slow down. To remind myself that healing doesn’t follow a straight line. Healing spirals, loops, doubles back. It’s okay to contradict myself, to love one part and resent another, to say I accept myself and still flinch at the mirror. I guess, the work is in returning, gently, each time I forget.

And maybe that’s part of the journey too, where I recognise the illusion even as I still fall for it. Maybe self-acceptance doesn’t mean never faltering, but noticing when I do, and choosing not to punish myself for it. One day, I hope I’ll reach the point where I can pick up a razor or put it down without either decision meaning anything more than comfort. It won’t feel like rebellion or conformity, just choice.

Sometimes I run my fingers through my hair and think about how long it took me to see its beauty. Maybe one day, I’ll touch my legs and feel the same. Until then, I’m learning to sit with the discomfort. Until then, I’ll keep learning to meet what grows from me with patience and let it teach me where I still ache to belong.

Because beneath all the polish the world demands of me, there’s still something in me that resists. Something that refuses to be trimmed into shape. It’s the part that laughs too loudly, grows too freely, feels too much. And maybe that’s what I’m really trying to protect. The wild that remains in a world that keeps trying to convince us it shouldn’t.