The first time I saw myself

This can work as a prose or spoken word

I remember growing up believing I was the ugliest creature on two legs. My mother would always say

“I have beautiful children. I’m so glad God gave me beautiful children”.

She would say this all the time but her actions, at least to me where I was concerned, said otherwise. While I was not the most hygienic child, I did bathe every day. Unfortunately by the time I was 6 I had the body odor of an NBA player after finishing a 45 min game full court press. And that was with deodorant!

“You stink! You always stink! Go wash your a*s!”

 I have a few memories of my mother attempting to comb my hair.  Never taught me how, but I have far more memories of my sisters trying to teach me and show me how to comb it. My mom,

“You look like a boy.  You need to comb your hair and take better care of it. A woman’s hair is her glory.”

I had what my mother called fuzzy hair. For those of you who don’t know what fuzzy hair is, it’s too curly to straighten and too straight to stay curly. It’s fuzzy. My mom would say to me,

“ Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy wuzzy had no hair”.  ”

Well gee mom I’m 4 as soon as I finish my cosmetology license I’ll get right on it.  It didn’t help that I was a tom boy and sweated as much as most grown men, so whenever my mother did take us to the beauty shop to get our hair done within an hour or two instead of having curls I would have a tightly curled baby fro. My mom,

“It’s a waste of damned money to get your head done”

I was mistaken so many times for a boy growing up, that my mother forced me to get my ears pierced when I was 7. By now I’m sure you’re saying, your mom had some valid points, you did used to stink from all the sweating and your hair was usually ruined in less than 24 hours after getting it done. Here’s the rub, I had 3 other sisters. She never said these things to them.

Lou, the oldest, “look at those big pretty eyes and that beautiful smile”.

Marilan, the second daughter, “my beautiful black angel. Do you know how gorgeous you are?” My God, she even wrote a song for that one.

 And finally baby girl Eva. “So pretty, with that pretty little laugh. Momma’s little lady”.

These idioms were reinforced by my parents because my sisters got to do more than I did, got to go more places with my parents. Many times I was told I could not go because, my hair wasn’t combed, my clothes were dirty, or I stank. When you hear no enough you stop asking and you get used to being left out. Left alone.  As I got older and took better care of myself as most females ultimately do.  I discovered that besides breathing punching bags, boys had other uses. As you can imagine, my self-esteem was shot thru the heart but you would not have known it, unless you grew up in my family. And even then, only if you took the time to get to know me, if I allowed you to. So now I’m a college sophomore at the University of Missouri Saint Louis. Like most college students I have a full time job during the day and at night I’m singing and cocktail waitressing in a night club for extra living expenses. So one evening I’m in the throes of getting ready for my nightclub gig.  I’m looking in the bathroom mirror doing my hair and then make-up. I go down the hall to my bed room to toss on my stocking and heels. I close the door to the room that I was in and there was a young woman standing there on the other side of the door and I thought wow! Who is that, she is really pretty. No I take that back this person is beautiful! It was a full 10 seconds more before I realized I was staring at my own reflection. I had spent I entire life looking at myself, but that was the first time I ever saw myself and realized, that like my sisters I was beautiful too.