I might not be my hair but damn how I miss my long hair sometimes. What in the entire fuck was I thinking cutting off all my hair? Oh yeah, I was thinking fresh start. I was thinking new beginnings. I was thinking of becoming the woman I truly am…on the inside. There is something powerful about a woman defining her own beauty by going against what most think is beauty yet it is so easy to fall into the insecurity of not meeting that standard. It is especially easy to let insecurity takeover when not too long ago you were that standard!
Hey, I am not my hair, I am not this skin / I am not your expectations, no, no / I am the soul within / I am not my hair, I am not this skin / I am the soul that lives within
It is definitely time for me to change my life to become the woman I am inside. Long hair, long nails, thick fit body, big full lips, bronze skin and perfect teeth. Many of us spend far too much time chasing standards of outer beauty that we feel we should be meeting while spending absolutely no time on working on what really makes us beautiful. Intelligence, confidence, independence, determination, persistence and resilience. Those are the things that really matter to me.
I no longer have longhair but I have always cared. It wasn’t the hair that I cared about. It wasn’t beauty that I cared about. It wasn’t even necessarily me that I cared about. I have always cared about becoming an intelligent, confident, independent, determined, persistent and resilient woman…that is the beauty that I believe is inside of me. Whether I am bald or with hair flowing down to my waist I want to believe that there is real beauty and power inside of me.
I want to have enough beauty and power to teach my sons that what a woman or anyone in fact looks like on the outside isn’t the sum of what they are on the inside. Yes, outer beauty will always matter in our cruel world but it is the inner beauty that lasts past beyond the years when our favorite moisturizer stops saving face for us. My youngest son was angry and almost cried on the day that I cut all my hair off but since then he had a change of heart.
Mommy, you are still beautiful even without your pretty hair.
I am not my hair but I am my actions. Yes, my actions are finally starting to reflect beauty that I think I have long possessed but been so very afraid to show. My actions are finally starting to trump the outer beauty that I often hid behind. It is rather easy to act ugly when everyone tells you how beautiful you are. It is rather easy to forget that our actions are what defines us when everyone tells you about how longhair redbones like you are the thing to be. It is easier to be what others expect you to be or want you to be than to be what you dream of.
I am not what many people want me to be. I am walking further away from what many expect me to be. So that I can be the woman that is inside of me I know that I have to accept everything that I am not without letting that limit what I can be. I am not many things but I am a beautiful woman with short hair that will grow long again someday. I am not my hair but I hope to become everything that I think is beautiful…
…Intelligent. Confident. Independent. Determined. Persistent. Resilient…
…Time for me to live up to my standards of beauty and what I am!
