Curly

I have had super curly hair all my life. It wasn't till I was much older that I was able to appreciate it. I remember hating my hair and my mom for giving me this kind of hair. (because it was her fault I got the curls, right?)  Anyhoo, I wanted my hair to be straight like all the other girls I went to school with. I hated being teased because my hair was different. Here is the thing, as a bi-racial child, I was neither white enough because of my hair and never black enough because of my skin tone.  This is the Catch-22 of being mixed.I detested it when my mom would try to get me to wear my hair down. I would rather pull it back and braid it. This took place all through high school. It wasn't till my freshman year of college I embraced the curls. I first cut my hair short and then slowly started to transform into the curl loving woman I am today. I cut it short because I didn't want to spend forever doing it in the morning. (I am like my mother in that aspect, I would rather have short hair and take five minutes to get ready.)  I have cut my hair several times since then, just to spice things up. I love my curls now. It is a way for me to stand out without saying a word. I can walk into a room and the curls do the talking. That of course is a conversation starter for many people, because they can't figure out how a light skinned, blue eyed girl ended up with black curly ringlets.  Then of course, for some reason, white people always want to touch it. HELLO!! I don't ask to touch your hair, so please don't ask to touch mine. Trust me it feels like hair.  Its not just about the hair, its about accepting who I am as a bi-racial woman. I have accepted that my hair is only a starting point to this acceptance. I then started to love my full lips, curvy hips, broad shoulders, and the little bit of junk in my truck my momma gave me. Getting older those curves have been accentuated a little more and the hair has grown a little longer, but I still am a work in progress when it comes to loving all that is me. I am a curly haired, blue eyed, light skinned girls with full lips...if you want that is the black in me, but I say that is the strong heritage that I get from my lovely great grandmother, grandmother and my mother. I have never seen pictures of my great grandmother, but my mother told me she was lighter than me and had straight grey hair. She says I resemble her to some degree, and that makes me love me even more after hearing that. Even though I never met her, I feel her strength in me through the blood my grandmother gave my mother and the blood my mother gave to me. I am a curly headed lady and I will not be tamed!

Be kind today.