“1. You must let the pain visit. 2. You must allow it to teach you 3. You must not allow it overstay.” –Ijeoma Umebinyuo

Arbitrary coily locks of hair fell to the floor. My short, chubby fingers were clumsily shoved into safety scissors, chopping away, and with each tangled curl that piled around my feet, pieces of my identity were severed from my soul. My big, beautiful, curly hair was not quite so beautiful anymore. The day that I became my own hair stylist was also the day that I began to hate everything about myself.

It was my first day at daycare, and I honestly couldn’t have been more excited. Similar to any little kid, I liked starting new grades and meeting new people. This was the first school that I’d been to that was essentially “all white”, but I took pride in the fact that no one looked like me. It made me unique. It made me...me, but the other kids didn’t have the same mindset. To them, I was different. And to them, different was bad. To them, different was ugly. So instead of my first day of school being full of story times and finger painting, my first day was full of little kids telling me that I couldn’t play House because my skin looked like poop. I couldn’t comprehend why these kids were being so mean to me. My six year old world slowly crumbled around me.

I was huddled in a corner bawling my eyes out when my teacher’s teenage son came over to check on me. Through the tears, I recounted everything the mean kids said to me. After listening to my story, he consoled me and told to come inside until I calmed down. Now that I‘m older, I can see all the warning signs and sometimes cringe at the memory of my innocence and naivety, but my six year old mind was in despair and craved a friend.

“It’s ok. I love your hair.” he whispered as he stroked my wild curls. I was far too young to know what was happening. “Black girls are my favorite.”  And with one forceful kiss, he took away both my innocence and self-respect. I tried and tried to yank myself from his grasp, but I was too hysterical and he was too strong. He treated my body as an object and my soul as nonexistent. My six old self needed something to blame for the way he hurt me, and I chalked it all up to the fact that I was black.

So as I looked into the mirror and gazed upon my curly hair and brown skin he loved too much, all I could see were features that would cause me pain, and I knew that I never wanted to be that girl again. As my hair grew back and reminded me of who I really was, I begged my mother to flat iron my hair and, she unknowingly helped me become someone else. And after a few years of creating a fictitious version of myself, I forgot that I wasn’t actually being true to who I was. It was easier to be the least black possible in order to fit into society’s Eurocentric standards.

Within the past couple of years, I’ve told my mother about what happened almost ten years ago. Talking about my traumatic experience and analyzing it made me realize that I hadn’t truly been myself since I was six years old. A wave of truth came crashing down on me. I hadn’t been myself since I was SIX YEARS OLD. It hit me harder than expected, and that’s when I stopped lying to myself and began to embrace who I am.

Now I look in the mirror and see an intelligent, beautiful, strong African American young woman with hair as wild as my spirit and golden brown skin that engulfs the sun’s rays, and I’m so proud of where she stands today. My pain overstayed its welcome, but I found my true self in the lessons it taught me. It may have taken near ten years to get here, but I’m immensely grateful for finding comfort within myself.