Why it Took So Long
It has taken me 21 years of my life to realize I am beautiful. I'm 23 now, so you do the math. If you asked me to describe myself just three or four years ago, beautiful would not have been a choice word. I was a late bloomer and I hardly ever saw beauty when I looked in the mirror.
I grew up in a mixed race home with an African American mother and a Creole father, who is fair skinned. Although, my sister and I share the same African American mother, we have different fathers. Her father is white, and she has a much lighter complexion than I do. Even when we stand side by side, people don't think we are sisters. Not only did I not resemble my sister, I didn't look anything like my mother either who are darker complexion than I. So growing up, I experienced an identity crisis. I looked nothing like anyone in my family and I didn't know where I belonged.
I think I can speak for almost all younger sisters when I say, we worship our older sisters. We think they are beautiful and cool, and we want to be just like them. Unfortunately, this is where the problems ensued. Thinking that my sister was beautiful translated in my mind that I wasn't beautiful. At that time in my life. I hadn't grasped the concept that all women of all different complexions, shapes, and sizes are beautiful. I saw myself as a chubby brown girl with curly hair and my sister as a skinny fair skinned girl with straight her. That realization meant, I needed to make some changes asap.
The changes translated into a 10 year span of hair straightening, hair dying, makeup wearing, acrylic nail wearing, extension hair wearing, and trying anything to my appearance. To be fair, weaves were extremely popular and a full face of makeup with lashes was becoming the social norm. I truly thought that by adding all of these extras, I was somehow more beautiful. I walked around boastfully with a head of hair that didn't belong to me, nails that weren't my own, and a full face of makeup; thinking that I was somehow better or more put together than any bare faced woman I encountered. At the time, I didn't think I was insecure, I thought I was "hot shit". There were times however, that I wanted to be all natural, but I had created this persona and I felt that I had to maintain that image.
In the fall of 2013, I took a weave out of my head and realized that pretty much all of my hair had fallen out. It was then that I realized I needed to make a change. This might sound like a trivial matter but this was major for me. This meant, #1 I couldn't put another weave in my hair and #2 I would have to leave my hair the way it was and begin nursing it back to good health. I remember the stylist that encountered my hair a few days after I took my weave out says,
"Don't put another weave in your hair again and don't put any heat on your hair for the next 6 months or it will fall out"
My best friend had gone natural a few months before me and though I was proud and supportive of her, I never thought I would go natural as well. You could say I was forced into the natural thing. The first year, I focused on my hair hair. I was obsessed with recovering my dull stands into bouncy curls. Once I began to really pay attention to what I was using on my hair, I began to pay more attention to what products I was using on my skin. I began to invest more and more time into learning about proper skin care as well.
I am almost two years into my natural journey and I feel more beautiful today with my natural hair and my bare face than I ever did wearing weaves and tons of makeup. Natural living a is journey and although changes may not happen over night. doing it the natural way is worth it. This post isn't to discourage you from wearing makeup or putting some clip ins from time to time. It's to say,
"Don't let all of those additives determine whether or not your feel beautiful. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL in every second of every minute of every hour of everyday."
When you wake up fresh faced in the morning, I dare you to go out into the world as natural as you can be. Once you begin to peel the layers of additives off and reveal yourself to yourself in your most natural state, you can then begin the process of not only accepting but appreciating and loving exactly who you are.
STAY BEAUTIFUL