“You were meant to be a guy, you have all boy looks,” Kalen told me one day. “Do you have a dimple? Girls with those cheek indentations, according to my mother, are prostitutes “She added before I could process the first statement, which I thought was too severe for my age. I was 15years old.
The mirror was my next stop! Was I supposed to be a boy? a boy?, everything I saw in the mirror answered yes. God was worn out at my creation moment, I concluded.
I always felt betrayed by my body. I despised it above all else. At this point, nothing my father had told me made sense.
I despised my slim figure and kaweke hair and wished I could do or find something to help me get rid of them. I tried eating fatty foods and resisted the urge to experiment with body modification, but nothing worked.
Not because it made me feel better, but because it allowed me to confirm God’s injustice, my mirror became a timely friend. Isn’t it God’s fault? a pale, anorexic, circular-faced, wide-lipped, big eyed, medium eared, and bubbled cheeks with small indentations ripe like bitter apples, “Kaweke” hair distributed on the head like sand particles! A bumless and thin-legged young woman. I became worn down and exhausted by what appeared to be my reality.
I need a solution, and if God must respond, he must respond quickly; I am suffocated by my own existence! I lay awake one cold night contemplating and screaming in silence about everything. I needed a solution because I was sick of existing and wanted to just start living or disappear.
When the Queen, as she was known in my school, asked how old I was, I responded quickly because she was our head prefect. I am seventeen years old, seventeen years old?, She was slightly taller than me, much fatter and browner, and she did respond in shock. You said you were 17 years old? she queried, emphasizing the fact that I appeared much younger than my age. All the girls a few meters away burst out laughing, and one of them asked from afar, “Who denied you food? Why do you appear to be so short? I’m only 15 years old, but I seem ten years older than you, she concluded which what appeared like a hard punch on my head.
While I cannot claim to be the bravest or most self-assured person alive today, I am proud of how my childhood memories of what I was told and experienced helped me as an adult in my self-doubt.
When I was a child, my father (RIP), who I believe had no idea what was going on, kept telling me how beautiful I was. He used to tell me over and over, “You, my daughter, are not only lucky, but you are exceptionally adorable,” I was only three years old.
He made remarks about my attractive features, including my gorgeous eyes, skin, and full, dimpled cheeks. Even though I didn’t do well in school, he regularly referred to me as a brilliant girl and an intellectual young lady. However, the bulk of my peers consistently gave me cause to question my physical characteristics.
One cold evening weighed down by feeling of hate for my body, I had heard a classmate say that girls with dimples often wind up as prostitutes, I ran right into my father and inquired if I would end up being one. I recall my father grabbing me and saying, “No, you’re going to be a greater person than that, you love to write, you will be an author or a speaker or a lawyer or an IGG,” IGG was the moniker I had been given as a kid for my love of reporting. I was raised with the notion that “I am nothing less than gorgeous,” which was superbly instilled in me by my dear father.
Even though I frequently lost, but because I was told I was clever and intellectual, I felt the need to attempt again. Yes, I did become a prefect in the most of my school levels, and teachers came to trust me. I would hear my father’s deep voice telling me how wise I am whenever I felt insecure or taken up my body thoughts.
Although I wasn’t the brightest, I had a deep-seated belief that I was as bright as I could be, and as long as I held onto that belief, it defied all chances of failure and lack. I ended up at the country’s best University, it was great for me. I had lost my dear dad but I knew there is life beyond my body and outward looks.
I didn’t understand how much time I had squandered focused on all that I was told by everyone about my body yet what I discovered just in time was that my own voice spoke so eloquently to myself and what I said to myself mattered much more than what others said about me. I started a spiritual practice of speaking kindness to myself and everything my creator says about his creation. Things changed, and my life took on a new direction, I always loved to pray but college was one of those times that I knew something bigger than I am needs my focus for in it lies all truth.
I went to the saloon one day as usual to plaint before anyone could see my Kaweke hair and my two sister friends insisted on escorting me. I did my part to turn their request down but they came with me anyway.
“Wow, you look amazing with your natural hair, please don’t plaint it,” my girlfriends said as they assisted the saloon woman to unplait and wash my hair. I quickly muttered in shame, now very conscious of my kaweke hair, “I know it’s flattery, let them just stop, and then someone inside of me interrupted the flow of my thoughts, its true, they are right!
“No your hair actually looks good, give it time to breath before you can plaint again,” the saloon woman insisted. We returned to the house, and now the guilt of having a head covered with kaweke hair was boiling inside of me. This was the end of my shame and the beginning to my freedom.
As I accepted the compliment on my hair, something within of me was shaken, and I sat in our little prayer room praying and talking to God about whatever was going on inside of me. I’ve never been able to determine what changed internally. I came face to face with the truth of my distinct self.
“The daughter of the highest God, completely made in his likeness, redeemed by his grace and through the blood of his most priceless son” a voice within muttered endlessly. I gained a strength of self-belief that has carried me ever since. It’s a force that transcends my appearance, myself, and all that has ever been or will ever be.
I adore myself, my body, my entire existence; I simply adore my life.
