Showering

When I was little, I used to spend an hour or more in the shower, but I only took them when my grandmother forced me to. Most of my was spent with the water running while I sat on the floor and daydreamed, and the actual shower didn't take long at all.

When I moved out, I still took them as seldom as I could get away with, but I also stopped spending an hour just hanging out in that room.

I used to tell people I'm hydrophobic, but I've never really been that stressed about rain or swimming. It was more of an excuse for why I hate showering. But looking back, I realize that I spent so long hiding in the bathroom because it was my refuge. We had enough bathrooms that no one was ever yelling for me to hurry up, and if I was in the shower, then no one was yelling for me to do things either.

But at the same time, I hated showering because my grandmother made sure that I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that I was incapable of washing my own hair. Every time I went in, she gave me a lecture for how to wash my hair that included scratching my scalp raw. Every time I got out, she wanted to know if I did it right this time. When I moved out, I internalized that, and I still can't shake the feeling that if I'm not scratching at it until I bleed, I've done it wrong.

Today, I willingly took a shower. It's something I do more frequently now, though still not as much as I should. Nowadays, showering means time with myself, thinking about the past and what my grandmother taught me, and I like to get out quickly. But today, I had this epiphany.

I'm pretty sure my grandmother kind of ruined my hair. She always insisted that it was horribly oily and any amount of oil was bad. I don't know if I always had dry hair, but I'm pretty sure I do now. All of which is a kind of roundabout way of reminding myself that she was wrong. She was wrong about the scalp's natural oils, and she was wrong about how to deal with them.

I don't need to hide in the bathroom anymore. It's time to stop being critical of my hair-washing skills, now.