Who Am I?

I didn’t love myself for a very long time. This went way back to middle school as a young Black girl trying to figure out who she was and how to fit into this world. I never really wasn’t too concerned with my looks in elementary school because a lot of kids weren’t thinking about what they had on, what they looked like or how their hair looked. It was all about seeing their friends and recess. LOL. At least for some I guess. Those were the good old days where we didn’t have to worry about responsibilities or peer pressure. As kids, our job was to just live and focus on being a kid!

But all that was about to change for me and I didn’t know it was coming. Living in Virginia is okay, I’ve seen just about everything living in my city and living with my parents. My grandmother also lives in VA as well so I do have some family here. I attended a middle school that was minutes from where my grandparents stayed at. Back in the 90’s most of the kids were mild-mannered and knew how to act, or at least some of them did. I found myself wanting to fit in with the groups of friends I hung out with. Can you believe that middle-schoolers had a popular crew? These girls and boys were fly and dressed fly as well. For the girls they were bigger than me and had hips. I was a skinny black girl who didn’t feel as pretty as the other girls. I mean these girls didn’t look like your average middle-schoolers. I hated being short and small. My size was a big issue because I often got picked on and teased some of the time. Thank God I never got into fights for them!

One thing I noticed was, I was very boy-crazy. It started in middle school and the boys were very handsome. I found myself having a few crushes, but of course they didn’t notice me. It was always the other girls that got the attention. Some of these girls had long hair and was a lighter complexion or most of them were more developed in areas than I was. I wasn’t pretty much eye candy, but I hung out with girls who were. I just found myself having fun and just being a normal girl I guess until I moved to Hawaii in 1999. I know you are probably thinking “Hawaii? What? You are very lucky!” I would say very lucky indeed. My dad was stationed in the Air Force back then and had orders to work there. Of course for me that meant not being able to finish middle school where I was going at and moving to a brand new state with new people and a new school on top of that.

Just like I was boy-crazy in Virginia, that followed me to the main land as well! LOL. I made some new friends and I still wanted to fit in. I had several of groups I was hanging out in because I wasn’t sure who was best for me to hang out with. I wanted to fit in so bad that I would start pulling up my shorts to make them look shorter and a girl called me out on that. One of my friends I was hanging out with told me to pull them up. I didn’t know what I was trying to do or who I was trying to prove myself to, but my focus wasn’t on my schoolwork. My journey to finding myself and trying to fit in caused me headaches, drama with friends or so-called friends and feeling depressed and even had suicidal thoughts.

In high school the thought things would have gotten a little better but it wasn’t at all. I was faced with the same issues trying to fit in and hang out with different groups of people. I would have my African-American friends I hung out with and my non-African-American friends. I felt like a looser because I really didn’t fit in anywhere. Even my Black friends could be phony and two-faced during the process. I still didn’t feel pretty enough for the boys in high school and didn’t felt “cool” enough to hang out with the popular kids. I didn’t know what defined popular back then, but realizing now in my 30’s that doesn’t matter now. Even though my pain, the drama and being mentally drained, I was depressed without even knowing it. I dealt with things that I couldn’t even tell my parents about. I was stressed and depressed at a very young age. My parents weren’t aware of any of this so it was just water under the bridge after I graduated high school and moved back to VA for college.

It just seems like a pattern even in college but I pushed past the pain and drama and learned a very difficult lesson that everyone isn’t your friend. Man I wished someone gave me that speech in high school, but the people I befriended in high school and even in college were backstabbers and phony. I really wished I was warned about those ladies, but I’m glad it happened because it taught me some valuable lessons. When I look back over my life even as a little girl who craved attention and only wanted to fit in, I am realizing now that I am perfect just the way I am. My self-worth is too important to allow the world to tear me down and tell me who I should be and look like. I’m grateful for those life lessons.