"Beauty" does not negate insecurity.

Update.

I have decided that I am going to marry Tom Hiddleston.



Carry on.

xoxo

I ♡ VectorBelly

VectorBelly gets me.

Me:




Yes. Thank you VectorBelly comic guy.

xoxo.

OKAY.

   So, I haven't watched the "Miss America" Pageant in...probably at least 5 or 6 years. Not because I really want to and I just forget, but because I just forget it even exists altogether- until I hear about it afterwards.

Well, this morning on my usual Bus Route (public transportation is the bees knees, y'all), I was catching up on news events on my CNN app and I heard that Nina Davuluri won Miss America.

I thought it was so amazing that she was the first "Miss America" winner from Indian-descent and I wanted to say, "good job, America!"
And then, AND THEN I heard about all of the uproar over her winning the title because she is Indian American.
Apparently, a bunch of idiots people took to twitter to complain about Miss. Davuluri not being "American" because she's from Indian descent (which is stupid, because with this logic NO ONE is American, except for Native Americans...and even they were nomads who migrated here...sooo, technically no one).  

Nina said, "I always viewed myself as first and foremost American."
There are plenty of people in this country (aka: pretty much everyone) who have ancestors from other countries.
People have said some absolutely repulsive idiotic bigot-laced stupid comments, in reference to Davuluri's win and I can't even believe that those things are even thought by anyone.

   People (many of whom were surely dropped on their head as a baby) made reference to Davuluri's win being "inappropriately" close to 9/11...as if we should be racially insensitive to people of Indian/Middle-Eastern descent because of that.
"Yeah, let's be racist toward EVERYONE who looks Middle-Eastern... because 9/11!"

How stupid.

(It's important to note that the MAJORITY of twitter users are between the ages of 18-29; this makes me wonder about my generation.)

Someone said "This is America, not India."

This is America, not Ireland.
This is America, not Japan.

This is America, not England.
This is America, not Africa.

This is America, not Spain.

This is America, not Peru.

This is America, not Barbados.

This is America, not Bangladesh.

Um, obviously this is America you pea brained imbeciles silly people.

That statement ("This is America, not _____.") can be said to pretty much anyone. If you ask a Caucasian person where there family is from, they may say "My family is Irish and Italian," or something like that.

BUT THEY'RE AMERICAN.

Like Nina! Like me!

I'm from Jamaican descent, but I have my papers and my passport and my SSN... I'm a Jamaican-American.

As an American citizen, Nina has every right to every privilege that any other American has, including winning the "Miss America" pageant.

What do Americans look like?

They look like you. They look like me. They are black, white, brown, beige, eggshell, apricot...whatever! That's what makes this country amazing and colorful! All the different foods, cultures, music and clothing makes this country what it is! 

Racism is just something that I will never understand.

LOOK AT NINA, you guys. She's stunning! 

She looks like a "Miss America" to me.

Why would you ever want to waste your time hating someone solely based on their race?

If a white person is rude to you, don't hate all white people. ONE white person was rude to you.
If a black person rear-ends your car, don't hate all black people. ONE black person rear-ended your car.
If a hispanic person...

If an Asian person...

If a Middle-Eastern person...

THE ACTS OF ONE OR A FEW DO NOT DEFINE AN ENTIRE RACE/ETHNICITY. 

JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE IS DIFFERENT FROM YOU DOESN'T MAKE THEM LESS HUMAN OR INFERIOR.

JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE IS _______ DOESN'T MEAN THAT THEY THINK LIKE THE ________ PERSON/PEOPLE THAT YOU HAVE ISSUES WITH.

Srsly, I have no idea why this is a difficult concept.

In my opinion, it takes much more effort to be a racist person than it does to just accept each other.

I'm incredibly happy for Miss Nina Davuluri. What an honor it must be to be the first Indian-American "Miss America." She's beautiful and I think that it's amazing that she won (and I think it's even more sweet that she did a Bollywood dance routine for the talent portion).

Sweeeet! (I love Bollywood)

I will say, though, that the fact that she won shows that we have gotten somewhere. Not where I wish we were or where we should be, but we're somewhere.
I hope to see Indian-American women taking home the "Miss America" title plenty more times.
I love being a woman. Women of every race and ethnicity are beautiful and everyone's beauty should be celebrated (super-cheesy, but I believe it)!

      

  

Girls are amazing and being racist is stupid (make sure to teach your kids that).

xoxo.

What life [recently] has taught me (this is not even slightly comprehensive).

(Here is the slightly more substantial post)

So, as of late, I've had two things that have really, really made me reevaluate things about myself-- I'm always reevaluating (and I'm always talking in parenthetical).

Thing #1: MY HAIR IS NOT DOING WHAT I WANT IT TO DO (this sounds insubstantial, but let me explain):
To a lot of women, our hair is our "crowning glory." Last year (and several years prior) my hair, for the most part, did what I want. Anddd...I killed it: straightening, highlighting, ombré-ing, braiding, chemically straightening... You get the point.
Now, while my hair had been quite faithful to me, recently it has not. I hate it. It sheds for no reason, it has little body and (since I cut it) I feel like it's just not growing.
This produced in me a plethora of insecure feelings. Before I get to that, I will address thing  #2.

Thing #2: A HORRIBLE ALLERGIC REACTION TO LIVING.

I don't know what I am allergic to, all I know is that almost everyday (excluding today, woo-hoo!) (UPDATE: After I wrote this, I broke out in an allergic reaction on the same day), for the past two weeks, I've woken up with an allergic reaction on my face, ears, neck, back, stomach, legs...etc. I mean, it is kind of ridiculous. I don't know what I'm allergic to, and it's not even exclusive to my apartment or to anything I eat (that I know of). I went home to visit my mom and ate NOTHING that I usually eat and I still woke up with an allergic reaction.  It was more like a series of large bumps and swollen areas versus rashes.

Picture:

more than

(UPDATE: When I wrote this post- yesterday- I had only had the swelling. Lo and behold, last night I had a rash on my face and knees...yes. My KNEES. This rash continued to spread. Sigh.)

So, imagine me (feeling) bald and swollen. 

I don't look how I want to and, as petty as this may seem, it started to really affect me. I always try to convey this air of confidence, but I started to feel very insecure. 

One day I would wake up with a swollen eye, several swollen spots on my neck, a swollen ear and a swollen forehead (yes, my forehead became swollen), and those are only the visible parts. My hair sheds an actual clump in the morning and I still try to be pretty (as inconsequential as that sounds) to go to work and school.

I felt miserable. I hated how I looked, but even more than that, I hated how I felt. 

I didn't like the fact that so much of my security was riding on  my appearance (what am I going to do when I get old, wrinkly and grey if I feel this way now?).
So, I started to reevaluate my...values.

How much value do I put on something as trivial as my appearance?
How important is how I look to me? How important is how other people look to me?

I started to feel very stupid about how I was reacting to this situation.

Then, I actually started to laugh at myself.

Another day I woke up with a swollen ear, a swollen eyelid and a swollen forehead and I cracked up.

I looked crazy. I looked hilarious. But that was okay.
People at school and at work may have thought, "Oh my goodness, this girl is a freak of nature." And...I am a freak of nature. We all are. We are all unique (freaks), people! And if all I have to complain about is swelling on my epidermis, then I actually have it quite good.
There are so many people who have much more painful and debilitating issues, and all I have to complain about is a few swollen areas on my face (that occasionally make me look like Quasimodo).  

**(Now, I will add that I definitely need to see a doctor. While these bumps look funny, and I get that, they sort of feel like my skin is on fire. That's not fun.)

But what I want to emphasize is that physical "deformities" don't actually make someone less of a beautiful person. Beauty is an aquifer; just the surface (the well) doesn't describe how much there is to a person. A lot of a persons beauty comes from what is below the surface, beneath what is seen.

"Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting," after all.

Celebrate beauty within!

(This is great news. My stupid hair and my bumpy skin do not define me! And whatever you don't physically like about yourself does not define you either.)

xoxo.

#PoorLife #FirstWorldProblems

****This is going to be a stupid post.****

I was talking to my cousin about online shopping and she basically stated- You know you're poor when you can't afford a [cheap] outfit.

I proceeded to bombard her with Kim Kardashian crying pictures (to emphasize her "first world problems"), and I figured I'd share these pictures with you because: 1) "Crying" over  these issues do make first world problems seem ridiculous and 2) These pictures are actually really funny (sorry, Kimmy. And sorry cousin ;) ). 



















And, yes, I did send my cousin all of these pictures. (She wasn't really complaining, I was just teasing her)

I promise to write something more substantial soon.

Stay strong my first world friends.

xoxo.