A Woman's Journey (my perspective)

I believe the most important part of a woman's life is the moment when she begins to fall in love with herself. No matter how many people told you that you were attractive or even if you were the most popular girl in school just off looks alone; when you're a young girl you're terribly insecure. You're deathly afraid of you're own image. The pressure to be beautiful kicks in because you're growing up knowing that one day you will have to compete for a husband. In order to make it through life as a halfway decent woman you'll need to someone to love you and to want to take care of you. That right there will turn to a innocent child into a terrified confused teenager. Then by the time we are all wanting to die because we can't figure out how to look like the next girl, we go through a phase. Some will chase men and sleep around, some will shy away from boys completely, some will involve themselves with the wrong men, while others find comfort in a long term boyfriends and will be terrified to be alone. We will all place ourselves somewhere we don't really want to be, and we think the next girl has it good when in reality all of us are messed up.

After the terrible teen years pass we become little women between the ages 20-25 and the pressure is on to find a mate to make our happy home with. You know, the one with the white picket fence. Our deepest prayers are that the next guy is the last guy, that we could end the game of "he's not the one". We've all heard the rumor that our stock begins to plummet at 25 and no one wants to have kids with a woman over 30....so this is it. We must find him in the next few years or we will fail the life's work of a woman. Every man we meet becomes a target, we look him in the eyes and our minds wonder what our life would be like together before we even find out his name. Some of us find him and will be scratched from single woman existence and disappear into a different world. Then there are some of us who would do anything for a husband and will pick the first bidder. Trying to turn every man we meet into the one and subscribe to Bride magazine while we're still single.There are some girls who replace love with partying and/or careers, occupying the time until Mr. Right arrives; praying that we can find fulfillment without a ring. These years are the worst for all the girls because we want the life on the other side, we think the grass greener no matter whose yard we're standing in. We try new looks, personalities and friends; we can't seem to hold onto anything. These years are dark and scary, nothing makes sense.

Soon after that you began to look back and study yourself from the outside, reminiscing of the girl you used to be. You stop being mad at her for doing certain things because you realize she was just a kid. In those moments she only got to see one side of every problem she faced; which didn't give her a fair advantage of how to win each battle. You see now that she reacted that way because that's all she knew how to do in that moment. You feel sorry for all the bad things she went through so you nurture her wounds and begin to love her. You forgive her for not appreciating her beauty back then, she didn't realize she was one of a kind. She will love her body as a woman because you love her so much you decided to take care of it for her. You let her heal and you let her grow. You tell her to stop being afraid because you've already gotten so far and it's just going to get better. The mistakes she made back then are no longer mistakes, they are lessons. You no longer look for love in the wrong places and you no longer have to run from it either, because you found the love within yourself. You realize that you are enough. This is the best part of becoming a woman, the moment you realize when it's happening.

Naturally Thin

I've had this blog topic in my queue for quite some time now and today more than any seems like the perfect time to post on this subject. I've been working on lifestyle changes in every aspect of my life. I decided I need to eat healthy & clean (especially since diabetes runs in my family), exercise more, take care of my skin, hair, mind, everything! I've even been putting in the effort to dress better at work. My staple outfit for work used to be leggings/ jeggings with and over-sized sweater and riding boots. It was simple and easy so I rocked that look almost everyday. Lately I've been dressing to impress so now my coworkers have begun to take notice...of my body. Last week I received a few questions as to WHY I'm losing so much weight. I answer truthfully "I'm just changing my eating habits". Then I received a comment from a male coworker who said to me "You losing all that weight, you know men in Atl like the women thick". You know because you have to live your life the way the majority of men want you to, otherwise you're going to be left out in the cold. 

This morning I was getting dressed for work, pulled on my bootleg jeans, a white slouchy tee, a black biker zip up shirt (left open) and my pointy toe black boots. I was was going for a rocker style and I thought I looked great today, I was feeling myself. When I got to work I was confronted by most everyone in my office about how skinny I've become. Apparently I lost 50 pounds in 2 weeks because people just noticed I lost weight and they seem to have a big problem with it. I had ignorant rude questions of "concern" like "are you eating?", "is everything okay?".  All the way to the rude comments such as "You have a white girl ass now/ maybe you should get booty shots/she lost all her lady parts/don't fall apart!" I was annoyed and pissed that these overweight and unhealthy MEN had so much to say about my looks. 

The big kicker for me was when 2 of the managers were in their office talking when I walked by and I was called in to talk about my recent weight loss. I have never in my life been so attacked because of the way I looked, they just wouldn't let up. When I stepped in the office the one manager said to me, "turn around and show him (the other manager) how much weight you've lost in your butt." I replied "Are you fucking kidding me? No!" The other manager asks me whats going on with my weight and I begin to tell him about how I'm starting to eat healthy and how I cut out certain foods, I was just going on and on praying that this would kill the questions. When I left his office I walked the long hall back to my desk thinking that everyone now was looking at me wondering what was wrong with me and why this black girl was choosing to be thin. As soon as my flat ass hit my chair I thought to myself "Why the fuck are you explaining yourself to these people?" 

I refuse to explain myself and my weight to another person EVER AGAIN. I've been doing this shit since I was a child and I'm over it. The next time someone says something to me I'm going to kindly reply "I don't want to talk about it" aka "mind your got damn business". If you know me, you know I would never starve myself or harm my body so if I'm healthy and happy and SKINNY then you need to press on. I've never been fat or overweight in my life. My size fluctuates between thin and skinny, that's the range my body has. I'm sure if I let myself go completely I could become overweight, we all can. I wouldn't let myself go to that extent because I'm happy with my size. 

I weighed 115 pounds all through high school and used to get teased about my weight all the time. I once begged my doctor to give me something to help me gain weight...her reply to me was "Girls KILL themselves to be your size, you need to be grateful". Well when you put it like that. Even when I was a little girl I remember my Nana would make me drink Ensure with every meal to fatten me up, I was 6 years old. Since the age of 6 I have been explaining to people why I'm so small. In black culture thin women are not deemed attractive, so if you're a black thin woman...that's a problem. You need to eat a sandwich, cornbread, ham-hocks, meatloaf, fried chicken, everything in site so you don't.look.like.that. When I was a teen I would go to my friends house or their grandparents house and I would get the same reaction from everyone "Oh baby, you need to eat something, get some meat on those bones." I'm full. 

This has follwed me around my whole life, I thought as an adult it would be over. I recently went from thin and unhealthy to thin and healthy...society would like me as the former. Though had somewhat of booty, it was sloppy and came along with a nice fluffy tummy that was hidden behind clothes. The tummy was accompanied by some A cup boobies that became one with side fat underneath my arms, which would blend with the back fat that I would have to tuck under my bra so the back of my shirts wouldn't look so lumpy. 

 Before and after pictures from unhealthy to healthy.

 Before (with a very padded bra): April 2012 / After: January 2013

People would say I have body dysmorphia and none of that is true or that there is nothing wrong with that, but when they are doing the same thing as me everyday (trying to hide back fat and muffin tops) it's different because I'm smaller. It's not. Fat is fat, whether you're skinny or big. Of course, OF COURSE I would love to wake up tomorrow with a body like Kim K but that's not who God made me to be. I WILL NOT apologize for that anymore, I can't spend my days explaining to people why I look the way I do. I've spent my life doing so already. 

I'm naturally thin along with millions of other black women, get over it. I have a slight head cold today and when I got home from work I didn't feel like eating dinner, I just wanted to lay down but then the voices came to my head about how skinny I was and I thought "Oh no I must eat something so I don't lose anymore weight". Do you see how the negative words of others can effect someone else's life? It's called bullying, yeah I throw jabs back best believe, but I never throw them first because I know what they can do. I looked at myself in the mirror long and hard today and I decided that I LOVE my body. I'm not going to start eating like a pig or become unhealthy again just to please others who do nothing for me. 

You have one life to live and you live it the way you want, you weigh the amount you want, you have as little or as much muscle as you want, dress how you want, wear your hair how you want. Don't let anyone tell you what you should look like. Telling someone they need to gain weight is the same as telling someone they need to lose weight. Either way you're telling them how YOU think they should look. It's not up to anyone else to decide what you should look like. 

Be yourself at all times! That's an order!