What defines you?

I’ve been having interesting connecting moments with my cousin. And you need to understand our relationship – we grew up together; did everything together; wore the same clothes; got the same Christmas and Birthday gifts…haha…yes – that’s to us!

In many ways we have always been very opposite – yet we had so much love for one another!

Felicia and I … though we now live far apart – understand each other J She makes me laugh, especially when she does people imitations; and we can have silent moments – and that’s enough too. I’ve always been the serious one, and she the joker – but as we got older; the roles sometimes have reversed (when the situation called for it!)

Our latest connecting moment and majority of our current conversation revolves around a simple thing.

Embracing who we are. And how society has at some early point forced us to believe that being a ‘certain way’ is more acceptable.

Either we are not skinny enough – pretty enough, our hair is not straight or long enough – our height is not acceptable because we are either too short or too tall; your skin tone is not light enough...or even dark enough…we face being discriminated against at such an early age! Society has found fault in almost everything that makes us who we are. And the sad thing is, it’s reached the point that this judgement from society is what we’ve come to believe.

I’ve never been skinny – and my generic makeup doesn’t really elude to me being a size 8 anytime soon! I’ve realised that by age 20…my height is my height too..lol – and with it comes so much benefits!-for one; I can jump the queue when needed and wiggle my through crowds..lol – all because I’m short!

But coming back to my cousin – she has always had the most beautiful, long black hair; very different to mine! I had shorter,  brown/reddish hair which always seemed to need much more maintenance than hers! Felicia’s hair always curled so beautifully and could dry in the sun naturally – not mine! Heeheee – I’m laughing as I think back to it now!

So recently she has been trying something new with her locks. She decided to no longer give it any heat treatment but to treat it naturally in the attempt to get her natural curl back. In her experience or rather her journey in doing this – her look is somewhat different. She has even received comments from people saying that her straight hair suits her better.. but why?

We chatted the other evening and she made a statement. She said, for a long time, she believed that her hair is what ‘made her’. Whenever she would get ready for an event or so, she believed that to look decent and acceptable – she needed to have her hair blow-dryed and flat ironed. Because this is what is acceptable.

Now – she is doing the exact opposite; and evoking some reaction.

 

 

And all in all this made me think. I told her the more I thought about it, the more concerned I became. In a way that I thought that, what gives other people the right to evoke what’s acceptable about your life?

It’s like, society boxes you in; and some of us have become so entangled in society’s expectations of what we should be doing… that some of us have lost ourselves in it. Society expects us to marry at a certain age, to have children before a certain age – yes a whole other topic – but it all comes down to the same thing.

People are discriminated against for how they CHOOSE to live their lives.

And that’s not on.

I support my cousin’s curly-no-heat-hair journey! If this is what is needed to find herself again; then so be it!

 I on the other hand, have come to love my thick, brown hair! It’s what makes me me!

 

 

But what we look like, what we own  - does not define us. What defines you is your character. How you treat people. Your level of honesty, loyalty, integrity.

Yes, we all have something about ourselves we don’t like as much – lol, that’s human. But, it’s part of who you are and what makes you – you.

Embrace it.

Embrace who you are.

There’s only one like you.

 

Hugs,

 

xx