Beauty in Every Shade

I love me, every inch of my body.

From the sparkle in my eyes, to the light brown stretch marks that reaches across my belly, hips, and thighs.

Yes, I sincerely love the woman that I am.

Not in an arrogant sort of way. No, not in a way that demands attention, or puts anybody else down.

But in a way that shows confidence in the woman that I have become, and grace towards the girl I used to be.

For, you see, I did not always love myself so fiercely. So deeply.

Nor did I exude such confidence in who I was. I was not “born with it”, but I have grown in love with who I am on my journey to womanhood.

The girl I use to be was timid, scared and full of self-doubt. She did not like the image that stared back at her in the mirror.

With eyes black as coal and hair as coarse as steel iron, she did not see the beauty in her melanated complexion.

She looked to her mother with her honey gold skin and long brown tresses that fell gently past her shoulders and wondered why she was not as beautiful as her.

One significant day, this little girl who felt uncomely asked her beautiful mother a question that changed her life.

“How come I wasn’t born with light skin like you?”, she asked.

Her beautiful mother looked her deep in the eyes with nothing but love and adoration for her lost daughter.

She lifted her chin gently to the heavens and spoke in a still small voice, “Beauty comes in every shade, baby girl.”

These words stayed with this precious child, although they were not taken seriously at first. These words took root in her little heart and grew with her as she entered her pre-teen years, and then adolescence, all the way into adulthood.

These words played on repeat throughout every instance of her life, molding her self-confidence and reshaping her self-perception, beauty in every shade.

Now this child has grown into a young woman. A woman who stumbles and hides away sometimes, but a woman who loves and appreciates who she has become.

I now have two little caramel-toned babies of my own: one with tight kinky coils like mine, the other with loose spring-like curls like his grand-mother. Both equally as beautiful and precious in my eyes.

I pray that my babies never struggle with loving themselves the way that I did.

In any case, with every chance that I have, I plant the same seeds that were handed down to me by their beautiful grandmother.

Every now and then in a still small voice, I remind them that there is beauty in every shade.