I was looking at myself in the mirror. During the pandemic I let my hair start to go long, and I have let it continue to grow long. The last time my mother really looked at my hair and saw how long it was, she asked if I was growing it so long because I wanted to look like my grandmother.
My grandmother had this beautiful long braid that went all the way down her back. Her hair was really beautiful. Yet, I never got to see it. She would only take her braid down to wash her hair and brush it. Most of the time, she would just wrap the braid in a bun on the top on her head. From the time that I was a toddler until I was about five or six years old, I thought she had short hair. I never even realized that her hair was in a braided bun.
A few years ago, I saw a woman with gray hair in a braid that went all the way down her back. As soon as I saw her, I smile because it filled my head with memories of my grandmother. However, when my mom asked if I was growing my hair long so that I could look like my grandmother, it felt like nails on a chalkboard.
I don’t ever dress, do my hair, or fix anything that has to do with my appearance based on how it looks. For me, I want to meet the minimum standard requirements for being presentable to others, but when I make decision about how I do my hair or what clothes to wear, about 90% of the time, I do it because of how it makes me feel not because of how it makes me look.
It hurts that my own mother doesn’t know me enough that she would ask me that question. I would never try to look like anyone else. I don’t want to look like anyone else; I want to be me. God teaches self-love and acceptance of self. It just seems so weird to want to look like someone else. I know that I may not be a model. When I was young, I thought I was so ugly I couldn’t stand to look at myself in the mirror. These days, I know that I am exactly what God created and that makes me beautiful in His eyes and the eyes of the people who love me. For me, that’s all I need.
I started to think about my own mother and her question. It occurred to me that she never really liked herself or the way she looked. She never learned how to accept who she was and so it only makes sense that she would think that someone would want to look like someone else.
I also have one more insight. It’s been a true struggle with my family. One of the things that hurts the most is the irony. All the things that they told me I wasn’t or couldn’t were actually the things that I found strength to do, but when I did, I found out that they couldn’t do those very things. My own mother made me feel like I was ugly, that I couldn’t brush my hair, or pick out clothes. She did things like get my hair cut and pick out clothes for me that just made me feel worse. She made me feel like I was overweight and all the same time she did all this psychological and emotional abuse consciously and unconsciously teaching me bad food habits. When I finally learned to accept myself and love myself, I realized that she had not been able to separate the two of us. All those negative feelings I ever felt about myself, she had and has for herself. She wanted me to share that with her and I just couldn’t. When I got better, I tried to help her. I really did, but she never wanted it.
I talk about floating in that ocean and not trying to drown a lot. I really do love my mom. I wanted to help her to float, but I couldn’t let her grab hold of me and pull us both under so that we both didn’t drown. That’s letting go is a really difficult thing to do. Whenever I read the commandment to honor your parents or whenever it’s Mother’s Day, I can’t help sometimes to wonder if I did the right thing. It’s in those dark moments that I pray for God’s faith, understanding, and forgiveness.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
