turning the tables

In my Grade 8 year, every morning I would wake up, straighten my hair for thirty minutes, put on makeup for twenty, and barely have enough time to eat breakfast. I spent almost an hour every morning making myself look and feel ‘presentable’. Did anyone care at all if my hair was straight? Probably not. Did anyone care if the few pimples on my face were concealed? I doubt it. Many people are very similar to my Grade 8 self. Our society wastes countless hours worrying about what others will see in us, when truthfully nobody really cares.

In Grade 8, nothing was scarier to me than coming to school without my hair straightened. To me, my natural, curly, frizzy hair was nowhere even close to presentable to my peers. I would go to friends’ houses with my hair curly, and the whole time I’d be wanting to straighten it…