Black girl, white braids
I fell in love with white braids from the minute I saw them. Maybe not just white braids but rather colored braids because back in high school, I remember rocking red braids and being the topic of conversation in my village. So much so I had to undo them.
That speaks to my cowardly nature. As a girl who constantly seeks permission to be. I grew up in the village so modesty was a state of being. I remember I once wore a spaghetti top, nothing too crazy and I barely had any cleavage back then but my mother couldn’t walk with me with my arms and chest exposed. And so I learnt to hide in plain sight. Becoming incognito… It also didn’t help that for my first job, my employer required us to dress in all black. And so I learnt to minimize myself.
The thing about being small is, you never quite know how to become big. Or at least, that’s my experience. I have the freedom to become anything in this life but I still consider that some of my friends are older and so I will dress ‘appropriately’. I run a film set as the producer and director and so once again I dress ‘appropriately’. And then that becomes my signature look and I have nothing too scandalous or sexy to wear on a date or on a night out with the girlies.
Sometimes, I will buy a dress for a date but I will seek permission to wear it. Am I doing too much? Is my body too curvy for this type of outfit. Gosh, what would my people think of me if they saw me in this? I ridicule myself and talk myself out of some moments simply because I expect that someone somewhere will grant me permission to live life and express myself as I see best.
You would think at my big age, I outgrow some of these small little fears. The things that hold be back in life are insanely mundane yet profoundly big in my eyes. It is the fact that I want to be a purist sort of artist and only make films that make me happy while knowing that I need money so I need to earn my stripes and take up any and all jobs. The fact that I want a lover but I have such high expectations, I might as well mould him with my own clay because what do you mean I have to present the choice of who I choose as a life partner to all my friends and family. Those are flawless people in my eyes so this human who joins the ecosystem needs to be perfect.
The fact that I want so badly to be a philanthropist while in most cases I also need help but don’t know how to ask for help because I was taught to perceive vulnerability as weakness. I am a girl who tries so hard but then I talk myself down and feel so defeated so I present that version that is defeated to the world because then it will be clear that I am not trying.
Oh to be me. A girl who wears colored braids to front courage even though I need permission to even dream big. A girl who has to borrow zeal and ambition from her friends who have more faith in her because otherwise she would say by the standards of her village she has exceeded expectations.
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