i be pretty one day

so my friend tagged me in one of those bookface challenges… you know the ones where you pick selfies and make a collage and share it with a script about the challenge and then tag a certain amount of people. that one.

what’s wrong with that?

nothing really except i don’t think any of my selfies are beautiful.

i don’t think i’m beautiful. not sure if i ever did but i most certainly do not now. (insert litany of issues with personal aesthetic).

this is not a plea for support or encouragement, “you’re beautiful” is not the panacea for this particular malaise. but wayne dyer says you can’t fix a problem with the same mind that created it. i would venture to ask the dear departed sir if i created this problem or if this problem was handed to me by virtue of my melanin levels, genitals and religious doctrine. or, do i have this issue because i’m not a light skinned black woman who was reared by a light skinned black woman with a color complex and a god complex? do i not feel pretty because i don’t want to? or do i not feel pretty because pretty wasn’t on the menu much for me?

as soon as i “changed my aesthetic” the compliments faded. did i ever need them? i used to pride my self on not focusing on my aesthetic because i was a decent person on the inside. my great gramma said dress up your head, so i did. but in all that dressing up my head, i never thought that the rest would matter. i always operated under the assumption that who i was would get me where i needed to be, looks be damned. so i stopped bleaching my skin and i stopped perming my hair and unfortunately gained a few dozen pounds. and i felt dirty and ugly and absolutely not pretty. much less beautiful.

last night, my thesis adviser/mentor sponsored a film festival. dark girls was one of the films shown (and also desert flower which triggered the shit out of me and fucked up my life forever even though i’ve written and read and seen FGM before). i’d seen it a couple times and cried. last night, maybe it was the company, maybe it was the fact that i don’t cry in public, i’m not sure…. i couldn’t cry. it felt like there was a callous there. on that thing that hurts when i think about myself or my sisters or black women/girls in general. not the kind that protects as it heals, just the kind that makes one incapable of feeling. which is most certainly not the same thing.

i guess what i’m getting at is, this thing has been a thing for a while. and i’ve tried to build things to protect baby girls from this monster of self loathing but they failed. and as i sit on the edge of the precipice of this next phase in my life, the air is chilly and the space before me dark. for the majority of my life my self worth, and really the idea of myself that has existed in my life has had its genesis in spite. follow me. i felt i always had to prove something. i either had to prove someone wrong about me or just prove my worth, ability, humanity, intelligence, whatever…. ad nauseam. so when i no longer had someone (my grandmother specifically) to prove wrong, and i no longer gave a fuck about how my family felt about me (which is yet a work in progress), the proverbial wind was let out of my sails. and that is fucking disgusting.

so here i sit. in the part time faculty office on a sunday afternoon, writing this missive about time lost and time waiting, aching to be claimed, the canvas of my life yearning to be graced with hues of my own choosing; and i have no clue what to do. the passion for literature has left me. the desire to teach has escaped me. the love of philanthropy waits in the wings to be addressed. my thesis calls to be written. leases come to an end. student loan repayment looms. weight accumulates around my navel. and none of this is beautiful… to me.

maybe….

if i make some decisions. some real fearless decisions i won’t feel so bad.

maybe….

if i don’t restrict myself to absolutes and binaries i’ll be able to find some magical experiences within the word “OR”.

maybe….

if i take more selfies i’ll find a few that are beautiful. and share them. maybe if i do those things that will absolve me of this self degradation and help me find that thing that makes me whole.

maybe if i change the way i think i be pretty one day.