Now, neither of the above has to do with what we look like, wear, sound like, walk like.. none of those physical aspects! Size matters, the size and dimensions of your mind and your personality MATTER! It's our MINDS! I can tell you this because of how hard I had to work to TRAIN mine. It is not an easy task and I started doing it before I even knew what I was doing. I am not entirely there but I have come a very long way.
After high-school I left Jamaica and migrated to the Cayman Islands. Mind you, I was a young, somewhat unattractive black girl with relaxed, really short hair. I wasn't the brunt of painful jokes growing up because I was a smart child. I got teased for my thick glasses but nothing to scar me. teasing doesn't affect me much and that's been a trait of mine for as long as I can remember. I knew I wasn't the best looking girl but I knew how smart I was and that made me confident. Now, upon moving to my new home (Cayman), I thought this confidence would see me through and in the long run, it did, but initially, I had trouble. I started going to college and learning that like Jamaica, fairer skin and longer hair on women were glorified but here it was far more dominant. It was so pronounced it was thrown at me everywhere I looked. Even on the dating scene I was made to feel second best by my college crush (a darker young man) who later admitted that he chose another girl at the time because of vain reasons. That story stands out to me almost 5 years later. After that I stopped looking.. even today I don't look really. I've averted my gaze and developed a taste for something that has a taste for me, entirely. This kind of segregation had me feeling sub-par for about a year or two until I started to learn myself and grow into who I am today. It pushed me to a point where I went bald. I think most people think I was doing it to be trendy but deep down I was trying to prove a point. During that time the island guys were even LESS attracted to me. I know this because they would tell me. I was ugly because I was a triple no. I was black, Jamaican and bald. It's a good thing my main focus has NEVER been to find a boyfriend.. look, my strengths have kept me single! Lol!
Now I grew my hair out and got a weave after that. Then I started to grow into my features a bit more. My body developed and my face changed. Started doing photo-shoots, shows and I was on the scene, A LOT. My acne went away and I became a duckling and not so much an ugly one. I started to get attention from the same ones who used to shun me but I didn't want it anymore, from them or from anybody unless they were on the same mental level I am on. I found myself. And I am happy with her. I wouldn't want to entertain anyone that likes me the way I look on Tuesday because I love change and by Saturday I might be bald again. It is my favourite thing!!!! My favourite thing is to dress "weird" and do my hair in "weird ways!" This is me saying I can do this. I am allowed and you cannot stop me. Fashion is how I express myself and it has been my outlet all my life. Here I am allowed to be me under no premise without having to explain myself with anything other than one word: FASHION! I can't allow anyone to tame it or take it away because they do not understand or they are uncomfortable. I would be compromising me entirely. So, I also learned that I have control over who comes into and stays in my life... and that was liberation!
As for otherwise... I am interested in souls and REAL love, which I think has fizzled away because our insecurities have turned us into people who only want someone to show the world we have someone or can get someone... fleeting 'joys'. I've never been 'showy' with my personal life and that again set me a part. I never knew how to put in words what I was thinking/feeling. I've always felt enlightened but wasn't wise enough to verbalize it. I've done so much research and reading over the years and I've connected with some truly interesting people and all that, paired with my innate desires, has made me a wiser, more confident woman.
Recently, a new trend has surfaced, An attractive woman in our community now is a light-skinned (as it is now called), curly haired "thick" woman. So, what does that make the rest of us? Are we any less beautiful? NO. The only person that is LESS beautiful is the person that has to belittle one type of person to uplift another. Now, this might sound a little narcissistic but I don't care what end of the earth she hails from or how she looks, I put no woman above me in physical or inner beauty because I don't know anybody's inner struggles and nobody knows how hard I had to work to overcome mine. So, to me, I'm the strongest, most beautiful soul I know! Period. That's a type of mindset that will gain you love and respect from genuine people. I have that and I truly appreciate it. I also have some of the opposite but I shed no light in that dark alley so I can't even elaborate.
Funny enough during all of my coming into self I didn't want to look like anything BUT me. I didn't want lighter skin and I only wanted longer hair sometimes, I LOVE my short hair. I have never wanted a bigger bum, I've always loved my size. I might joke about it but at the end of the day I go to sleep happy. I guess I was stuck in a phase where I was comfortable with me and couldn't understand why it was considered less than attractive to the masses. And that is where I had to dig deep to find out what and who matters and that's when I learned it was me. My mind. That's all I need to rule my world.
Hopefully no one takes offense to this post, that is not the intention. I speak on what I see and how I experience things because that is all I know.
What I want from us is to start with ourselves as it pertains to making a change. You can yell and scream at people who speak poorly of another group of people but that won't change anything. "Darkness cannot drive out darkness, we need light to do that." The best way to get people to listen is to lead by example. Change the way you think, Change the way you speak about yourself. Change the way you speak of others. Change the way you define beauty. Once you love yourself enough, you can live anywhere and achieve anything regardless of what the masses like or uplift. I am a living testament to that. I have worked my tiny bum off to achieve the little I have and to get to where I am and I did it initially as a personal vendetta to prove a point but ultimately I saw the bigger picture. Some people need someone to tell them; "HEY! You need to be confident. You're beautiful! Just like this! And if you believe it, everyone else will too! And that's a fact." I proclaim myself to be one such person. I once needed to hear and found people willing to share, now it is my turn.
Go forth and be your own version of beautiful. Beauty doesn't have any definitive lines. No one is more beautiful than you unless you believe they are. What you think becomes your reality.