“Freeing yourself was one thing; Claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” – Toni Morrison
In 2018, I decided to make a change in my life. I realized that I claimed I was free, I was not actively living a free life and really being free. So, in the summer of 2018, I went a little wild, and against my mothers wishes, I did what I wanted to do. I went out and got my nose pierced, it was very small and not very noticeable, until I decided to take it a step further and put a hoop in my nose. My mom and brother said it made me look like a bull, but I just laughed because what bull do you know with a hoop in yours right nostril?
Then I stopped using heat on my hair and started growing it out. I tried new products to help my natural hair grow and look somewhat put together even thought Oklahoma humidity is a killer. I stopped allowing societies standards of beauty rule my every day life and started doing the bare necessities when it came to my beauty routine. When the morning time came around, I wasn’t waking up at 6AM to apply makeup, but instead, waking up 30 minutes before work and washing my face and letting my freckles and bare skin go noticed. I sat on my porch and drank my coffee and read a book instead of scrolling through social media, and i listened to nature instead of the ever present noise that social media crams into out heads.
Allowing myself to really be free and enjoy my natural beauty led me to carry on these habits into the school year. Now when I do my hair and makeup, it is only for special occasions. I don’t always turn to my phone out of boredom to fill my head with heavily edited images and twitter news feeds, but instead I fill my head with literature and listen to the bird chirping.
Being able to free myself helped me to look inside myself and reflect on what my mind and body needed. I changed my way of looking at the world and at who I was and my definitions and standards of beauty and just let it be.