Secret Sunday

I haven't done this in awhile, even though it's one of my faves.

Post Secret

It just so happens that I went out the other night with a friend of mine and asked her offhandedly,"Do you think I should wear my fake pony tail?" She looked at me quite seriously and said, "Yeah, I think it takes at least five years off of your face." I bought that pony tail, you know, just for kicks because I like to dress up sometimes. I like the way it makes me look. I also know that my friend didn't mean anything by saying what she did. She complimented me in a round-a-bout way. On the one hand, I appreciate that, but on the other hand...when I got home later that night and took the synthetic, straightned pony tail off I felt like I had just taken my beauty off. I felt like my hair, which is short and super super curly, was not beautiful and that I was not beautiful.

Every where I look all I see are women who have straight, shiny hair. Mine is curly, coarse and has a tendency to be dull looking because of it's coarseness. Even though I get a lot of compliments on it, I think privately that those women who say they want hair just like mine would never go for it because it would make them feel too different; too set apart from the rest of the herd. Sometimes, it's not bad to be a small part of a whole and I understand that dynamic. Other times, though, it's best just to be one's own self curly hair and all.

When I was a little girl, my mother used to spend hours working on my hair. She even gave herself blisters working the hair dryer to try to get my hair straight. For her efforts what she got was just a bunch of fairly straight, extremely coarse (more so because of the hair dryer), very unruly and very very big hair. All of my childhood pictures look like I'm wearing a grown-up wig. When I got to be in my twenties, I stopped trying to straighten my hair everyday simply because I just got tired of fighting with it. Still though, sometimes I wish I could be just like the majority of women with what one of my girlfriends calls "white girl Pantene hair". I guess it would be easier. I don't know. Maybe not.

My insecurities are screaming at me today. Can you tell?