The Things I Carry
May 7, 2024
Writer: Morgan Kanengiser
Editor: HY Editors
The thing I carry is always with me, whether in my hands or not. It has been all around the world, but it always stays in the same place. Sometimes I lose it. Other times, I have too much of it. I pay someone to care for it every few months, but it is still mine. The thing I carry is technically dead, but it grows every day.
The thing I carry is my hair.
I can set my calendar to my hair. I wash it every day. I use the special shampoo and conditioner you can only buy at the salon – never from the drug store – no matter the price. I'm not supposed to wash my hair every day, but I do because I can’t stand the feeling of going to bed with it dirty. Every Sunday, I use a purple shampoo that enhances my hair’s blonde color. Every Wednesday, I use a conditioning treatment to create “A Perfect Hair Masque,” according to the label on the bottle. Every summer, I use a heat protectant spray. Every winter, I let my hair be, its natural waves rolling down my shoulders. Look at my hair, and you can tell the season of the year, the day of the week, and the hour of the day.
I do all of this to my hair because another thing I carry is my anxiety.
My anxiety sits on my shoulders every day. In the story of my life, it’s the biggest supporting character. It’s not a love interest because I hate it. It’s my worst enemy, biggest pet peeve, and greatest obstacle. The anxiety I carry knots up my stomach, closes my throat, flushes my face, causes my skin to break out, shakes my bones, and weighs me down. It comes in waves but never goes away; I am constantly reminded that it can appear anytime. So even when I'm not anxious, I'm worried I might be anxious soon.
But I know I can go home every night and wash my hair. That I can control.
I control the length of my hair. I control the color of my hair. I control whether my hair is wavy, curly, or straight on any given day. I can wash my hair if I feel as though I am carrying around too much dirt from the day..
My hair is my armor. It is how I express myself, what I am most passionate about, and what makes me unique.
Every day, I enter a battlefield. On the inside, my anxiety says I'm a mess. On the outside, my hair assures me that I am put together. The things I carry work both for me and against me. I have the poison and the antidote, the problem and the solution. But I also take one thing my anxiety does not: hope. I hope the war will be over one day, and all I will carry is myself, completely free and at peace.