Someone said to me quite recently "You really love yourself alot, everywhere I go there are tons of pictures of you all over the place. I see you have yourself on your phone I see you have yourself all on your blog and Facebook, and on dvds and just everywhere. Boy you sure are one stuck up broad!"
I didn't want to stop him I wanted him to say what he had to say and I did nothing to correct him. If he thinks and believes that I am stuck up then hey he should continue to think and believe that. I most certainly will not stop him.
It took me a very long time to get to this point where I could post photos of myself anywhere. That's why I post pictures everywhere. Not because I believe that I am so fabulous but because I was raised to believe that I was NOT.
Let me explain that to you if I can.
Way before you were even thought of and joined the family as a tiny infant, I can recall on more occasions than I would like to remember, where I was compared to my older sister. I was not light enough, my hair was not straight enough. I could not pass, I was not white looking enough. I was ugly, fat, dark, black spot, dot, purple, nappy headed...you get the picture.
I grew up believing that the little girl that was in the mirror was a nobody because our family had convinced this young girl that she was ugly that I was never going to amount to anything because I was not pretty enough. I was convinced by my mother that I would never get a man because I did not have the body my older sister had. It was drilled in my head so much so that I refused to look in mirrors, or pose for pictures. I began to hold my head down and hide behind my large framed glasses because this duck was ugly and who in the world wants to be friends with the ugly duckling? Even I did not want to be friends with me.
In my silent, quiet world I was slowly tormented by my angry mother who chose to tell me, "You will never be nothing but a poor old, ugly, fat, black woman on welfare with a whole bunch of kids just like me. Now your sister, she is going places she is pretty enough. She will find someone to take care of her. She is light enough she can pass. You.,?..... you will never be that lucky"
So as I grew up I lived out what my mother and others in our family told me I was. I had been put in another box. I had been told that I would never get out. I have spent my entire life trying to get out of that box I was put in by the person that I should have been able to turn to to give me the confidence I needed to face the world.
Now here I am a grown woman who by my dear dear friend encouraged me to blog, to write, to get raw, tell the truth and never hide. Notice in the beginning how I never showed photos of me. Then slowly I showed myself, then I gave myself a name.
I can also remember when we put out the first album I literally REFUSED to take photos. Mose had to talk me into over and again. Very sad but true. I am STILL dealing with that little girl, she is still there even though I will see 40 this year I battle with that child daily.
So I post pictures to see myself and not be afraid of me. I post pictures of me online so that I can know that I am pretty enough, or that there is no monster there only me. Not because I think I am just so beautiful, but because I am afraid, that I will get back in the box of what someone told me years ago and I will live out my life based on a lie.
I tell you this so you will know one thing. What was given to me in huge doses of painful words came from someone who was hurting so deeply that they began to inflict that pain on to others that loved them. She knew no better and so for that I can forgive her. I hope she is at peace my dear mother who knew nothing much more than the world in which she lived. She remained in a box someone put her in at a very young age.
My pictures of me all over the world wide web and my cell phone and my home are representative of me kicking and screaming and pushing to get out and stay of the box and I can see myself and witness the change as it happens.
This is only the surface...just a taste. I will return with more truth.
Til next time as I look at myself once again,
No comments:
Post a Comment