And Then There’s Me…

In a large room there are women with long flowing hair and short pixie cuts. Expensive weaves with nicely laid baby hair; Mongolian, Malaysian, Brazilian. Neatly parted box braids, faux locs and twists. Traditional dreads, teenie weenie afros, voluptuous curls, kinky curly styled tresses that are neat, styled, unruly or free forming. Full faces of makeup…Bobby Brown, Fenty, MAC and Bare Minerals. Nicely drawn eyebrows, firmly placed individual lashes or strips. Colored contacts. Perfectly contoured cheekbones and noses with bronzer and what appears to be sparkly fairy dust. Lips lined, filled and plump with a glossy, matte or satin finish. Rocking designer threads, some leaving absolutely nothing to the human imagination and others thrifty and well put together. Bodies made by Dr. Miami, some off shore clinic in Columbia or Mexico and then those naturally made and approved by good home cooked meals, vegetarian and vegan diets and gym routines. Manicured nails and toes, stiletto, coffin, round, and square shaped beautiful and unique nail designs. Tall, short, light, dark, plus sized, skinny, fit and unfit, freckled, flawless, young and old…they are all beautiful in their own way. Some fighting for the spotlight, an area in the front of the crowd, hoping for all the attention or admiring themselves in their camera or in the camera lens of someone else.

And then there’s an awkward girl, attempting to stay unseen in the back of the crowd of well put together women. Intuitively feeling all of their insecurities, arrogance, self-centeredness, self-love, self-compassion and self-confidence or the lack thereof. With her finger styled two toned locs, thin at the crown, with pieces of gray hair, unarched and sparse eyebrows, sad but somewhat bright eyes that sat behind big framed glasses. Bare but speckled face from many years of fighting teenage acne even as an adult. Sparse lashes and a big ass hanging bottom lip that was passed down from her Grandfather that concealed her gap teeth that were slightly permanently yellowed thanks to the consumption of a trial cancer medication side effect. No Boundaries Walmart shirt, with a pair of ripped Burlington Coat Factory jeans and some dirty soled Converses. She stands at what she believes to be average height, with a weird frame due to fluctuating weight gain and loss because of grief, depression and just utter complications of life. She watches the ladies in front of her in admiration wishing she cared as much as they did about appearances.

She doesn’t understand the women who stand before her but she respects them. She doesn’t truly care to understand them because just as she stands in the back of the crowd. She doesn’t desire to stand out. She is perfectly ok with just existing. She is me…

In all my awkwardness I truly love me. I don’t need the praise and approval of others. I love the skin I’m in. Every scar, bump and bruise has a story. Some good and some bad. Center of attention? I hate it. Spotlight? I’d rather not. Physical appearance is cool and I believe that everyone is beautiful no matter what they look like. But my pure heart is what I care about most. I care and I give. I’m naturally empathetic and sympathetic to others. And that’s to include total strangers. In this particular story, episode, or simulation of life, I just want peace and happiness…not attention. Not all the extra, not competition for material things or status. And that’s not to say, I can’t put on all those things (besides the body by Dr. Miami) when I absolutely have to. Or that I don’t have nice things. But they are not a necessity in my life.

This post was simply to give myself some grace and to pay homage to this body that my soul is currently occupying. Life is hard. Grief is just stupid and people don’t cease to amaze me. Returning back to the clouded bubble that is my life. Praying that the sun comes out tomorrow.