Category: Uncategorized

10 People that History Whitewashed

On By K. S. WattsIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Last month I handed off the mic and pointed to several articles, videos, podcasts, etc that better handled the topic of racism than I was prepared or qualified to. I would love to do that again, but honestly I can’t afford to pay guest posters and asking someone to donate their skills during a time when they are bombarded with requests for emotional labor to explain this or that seemed like a jerk move. So we’re back to me. And while I’m not qualified to talk about the ins and outs of daily racism experience, I am entirely capable of research and editorializing.

I have screamed for years that Jesus wasn’t White. No matter how movies, paintings, sculptures, statues, or any other art media portray him. He was whitewashed starting around the time of the Italian Renaissance (a weird thing, to me, since at the time Italians themselves weren’t actually considered “White” by most of Europe).

Anyway, when I start that conversation people are often taken aback and then transition into “Oh…I guess you’re right.”

I’m fun at parties. Also, this is where a sarcasm font would absolutely come in handy.

It’s doesn’t stop with Jesus, though. There are a plethora of historical figures who have been whitewashed in one way or another (or, as the case with one figure on my list, erased from the narrative completely).

In writing it is all too easy to fall into a “white normative” mindset. If you only describe someone’s features, ethnicity, etc when they are not White, you’re essentially saying that everyone else is by default. And just for the record, while “White/Caucasian” is the majority in the U.S., Canada, and several European nations, worldwide it’s not even top three. So a white normative dystopian future tale is saying something about who the author expects to survive. Be mindful of that as you write.

Because white normative narratives affect more than literature. In history, unless we are specifically told someone isn’t White, it’s basically assumed that they are. You know why Alexander Hamilton being mixed race shocked a lot of people? Because they don’t mention his race in history books and he’s light skinned in all his paintings, so the dude must have been White, right? *Annoying buzzer sound* Wrong. We’re (United States education, both public and private, I can’t speak for anyone else) just accustomed to a White Normative History Perspective. A Whitewashed history.

What else are we missing? A lot, actually. But I’m limiting myself to ten because that’s my series. “10 Things on the 10th” not “A lot of things on the 10th”. So here are 10 famous figures who have been whitewashed or erased by our culture (in no particular order, be it chronological or importance).

  1. J. Edgar Hoover. He was part Jewish, yes. He was also (credibly) rumored to be Gay (though, some believe he was more Ace than anything). But the man who went hard against leaders of the Civil Rights Movement was also part Black. He was light skinned and began passing very early in life, and his family went to great lengths to hide that part of their heritage. But DNA analysis, genealogical research, and familial accounts all back up the claim that he was, in fact, part Black himself. There are also several accounts of people who openly questioned this while he was still alive who were immediately threatened by the man himself. It was a secret he guarded more closely than the nature of his romantic life.
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  2. Alexandre Dumas. He wrote The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers among many others. His father was a general in the French Army, well decorated, well respected and well recorded in paintings. Alexandre’s grandmother was a slave in what is now Haiti. His father was a dark-skinned biracial man, something made very clear in artistic depictions of him. Alexandre was lighter skinned than his father, but still pretty clearly mixed race. Now go back and read The Count of Monte Cristo, the story of a man who is wrongly accused of a crime and imprisoned for years, who eventually gains his freedom and fortune and returns (pretending to be an Italian Count) to seek revenge on those who purposely framed him. Do you picture it differently now?
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  3. St. Augustine of Hippo. Augustine was born Northern Africa to a pagan father (who converted to Christianity before his death) and a Christian mother. His household primarily spoke Latin as a way to evidence their education in Roman society. However, genetically, his family were Berbers–a people group historically and genetically tied to Northern Africa. Yep. One of the most important and celebrated figures in post Biblical Christian history was Black. Even early artistic depictions of him by the church show him as a dark skinned man.
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  4. Saint Nicholas. Yes, I’m bring Santa Claus into the fray. Saint Nicholas was of southern Greek decent, Turkish, and not especially light skinned given the early artistic renderings of him by the church. Santa Claus wasn’t a White guy. White beard is totally probable, though.
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  5. Ludwig Van Beethoven. This one has been debated, but science is on my side. While the first examinations were ruled inconclusive because his hair didn’t have the “most common” characteristics of genetically African hair (do not get me started on everything wrong with that statement), follow up DNA analysis and a facial mold created from his remains and modern technology say everyone’s favorite deaf musical genius was Black. And also didn’t look ANYTHING like the majority of his artistic renderings. This was not uncommon for his day and time, and it was even more so for Beethoven who was rumored to use copious amounts of white facial powder and even employ body doubles for portraits to hide his true visage.
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  6. Queen Charlotte. Wife of King George III (yes, the crazy dude from Hamilton). Charlotte came from a small German ducal family, but on her father’s side she was descended from Portuguese royalty. More specifically, she was descended from Margarita de Castro y Sousa, from the Black branch of the Portuguese Royal Family Tree. Remember when I said it was not uncommon for people to look nothing like their artistic renderings in Beethoven’s day? It was true for Charlotte too. In fact, when some court painters depicted her a little more realistically, they were fired and threatened with death. Her contemporaries’ written accounts of her discuss her dark skin (as compared to most White Europeans) and features, though, so her correct visage hasn’t been lost to history.
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  7. Pete Wentz. Most identifiable member of Fall Out Boy. His grandfather was a Black Jamaican man who is also a cousin of Colin Powell. Pete has never hidden his heritage, and has stated proudly that he is mixed race. However, with white skin and the last name Wentz, people have actually called him a liar regarding his ethnicity before, leading the musician to to essentially throw his hands in the air over it. If you’re wondering, I’m including him on this list to show that this is STILL HAPPENING.
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  8. Saint George. The patron saint of England whose flag was co-opted by Crusaders and a modern English political party. George was Turkish and Persian. He was Middle Eastern. By modern definitions, not a White guy. Something I’m almost certain is lost on the particular English political party using his personal emblem.
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  9. Alessandro de Medici. Financial gurus, power players, political powerhouse, Head of the Catholic church in their pocket, feared and revered in Florence, and an integral part of Italian history. That Medici family. Alessandro was raised as the son of Lorenzo II (son of Lorenzo the Magnficent) de Medici, but was, in actuality, the son of Lorenzo I’s nephew Giulio and a Black servant in the Medici household. Giulio was only seventeen when he fathered Alessandro, but would become Pope Clement VII by the time Alessandro reached his adolescence. His mother was married off to a lesser noble and Alessandro was accepted as a legitimate Medici because the last thing you want to do is lose your cousin the Papal throne and relinquish all the power (and blackmail ability) that goes with raising his son for him on the sly. Thanks to his birth father, Alessandro would eventually become the Florentine Head of State. Possibly (I say only possibly because I don’t know who else history has whitewashed) the first Black Head of State in Europe.
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  10. Sister Rosetta Tharpe. The Godmother of Rock and Roll. A Bisexual, guitar playing, boundary pushing, musical powerhouse who literally created rock and roll by fusing Delta Blues and New Orleans Jazz with her Gospel music. And yes, she was simultaneously bisexual and a worldwide Gospel sensation. When White artists began to copy her style and even get credit for it, she didn’t have much recourse. So she traveled to Europe and toured there for decades, creating a new following and performing to large crowds until just three years before her death in the 1970s. Still, even many music enthusiasts have never heard of her because her name gets buried under names like Elvis Presley who very much used her as inspiration.
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Do you have someone to add to the list? Tell me about them in the comments. I’m a history nerd who would actually be very interested.

ADHD is my Writing Partner

On By K. S. WattsIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

When I sit down to write, I’m never alone. And it’s not just because I have kids and am never physically alone. It’s because I have a writing partner. She’s always available whenever I sit down to write. Actually, that’s shortchanging her involvement in my life. She “helps” me with every aspect of my day. She’s my ADHD.

The great thing about writing with ADHD is that I’m naturally creative. My mind wanders and asking “what if” is practically a reflex. I’m not afraid to throw the rules out the window (after I’ve shown that I understand them). And when I’m researching something for a scene, I’m not just focused, I’m hyperfocused. I can spend hours reading articles, watching interviews, scouring historical texts and not bat an eye.

The hard thing about writing with ADHD is that I ask “what if” so often that I keep changing the story and never actually finish it. I can also become so intent on something that I end up burned out or overwhelmed. I can’t just sit down to write. I have to go through a list of coping techniques just to get started. Cut out as many distractions as possible. Have all necessary materials handy because if I have to get up and go searching for something, I might not return to my desk for hours–or at all. Set a phone alarm so that I stop working after a reasonable amount of time. Set small, attainable goals for a given time period so that I have a self-imposed deadline to meet. These things–and my other plethora of tricks–all seem so simple, but without them, I’m only setting myself up for failure.

It’s a gross oversimplification, but when asked what it’s like to have ADHD I sometimes say that it’s like someone else has the remote to the television in my head and they keep changing the channel without my consent. I’ve had to find a way to take the batteries out of the remote. But my ADHD, she’s a crafty one. She sometimes has back-up batteries.

To help give you a better idea, when my sister was diagnosed with ADHD and put on medication, she called me just a few days later in awe. “Kathryn, when I got home today, I realized that I could remember the entire drive home. It was so weird!”

We don’t black-out when we drive. We’re paying attention, but our mind dumps all that information as soon as we’re done using it because it’s deemed unimportant. We don’t NEED to remember that we stopped at the stop sign and waited our turn. It’s not required that we remember sitting at the stoplight until it turned green. We did it and now it’s gone. So we get home and unbuckle our seat belt to realize that we don’t remember actually driving there. But we can probably tell you every song on the radio during the drive, the entire life story of our favorite author, and what event signified the end of the Viking Age. Because that, for some strange reason, is what our ADHD brains choose to retain. It’s not so much “attention deficit” as it is “attention selective” and I don’t always get a choice about what’s selected.

When I was in high school, I would study for major tests with the radio on. Then when I was taking the test, when I came to a hard question, I would think about what song was playing while I studied that chapter. Singing the song in my head would bring back some of what I was reading during the same song the night before. I don’t know if this works for everyone with ADHD, I just know it was a coping technique that helped me.

So when I sit down to write, I have no trouble juggling an ensemble cast and remembering all of their life stories. I struggle with constantly wanting to change them. Writing a fun or action-packed scene is no problem, but writing the subsequent reaction scene is difficult. Finishing is difficult. Remembering to come up for air is hard. Not feeling like a failure when I spend hours at the keyboard and walk away with only half a page of words to show for my effort is a battle.

Whenever I sit down to write, it’s not just me. It’s me and my ADHD. Some days she’s a big help, other days she’s a massive hindrance to my progress. But she’s always there–dependable if nothing else.

Disclaimer: I only reference my ADHD experience and that of my sister because that’s what I am familiar with. Your experience may greatly differ. I have several other friends and family who are diagnosed as well and who experience it a bit differently than I do.

About Mother’s Day

On By K. S. WattsIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

The question arose why I didn’t choose to do a Mother’s Day post for 10 Things. First, thank you to that one person who both reads my posts AND is nerdy enough to enjoy my monthly trivia purge.

Second, quite frankly I wasn’t sure I hadn’t already done one. I couldn’t remember if I did it last year and I didn’t have a lot of time last week to go looking. My oldest graduated preschool and my parents were in town, so I tackled what I had time to.

My third and final reason is that sometimes Mother’s Day is hard for me. I love my children and feel blessed to be their mother. Their tiny little handprint crafts and sweet cards with “I love you” in crazy and horrendous handwriting are the most beautiful works of art that I have ever been gifted. I have a stepmother who has borne that title for almost twenty years. In fact, when I talk about her to others, I often just refer to her as “my mom”. But I also have another mother. Not my mom. My Mama. And she’s been gone a very long time.

My biological mother passed away over two and a half decades ago when I was still just a child. I still miss her sometimes and not just on Mother’s Day. But that particular holiday can sometimes remind me of the pain of losing her.

I have three older siblings. Last year, one of my sisters, the oldest of us, posted an old picture of her with our mother on social media and wrote a brief message about how much we still miss her. I cried because it was beautiful. I cried because it was sad. I cried because I was jealous.

Being the youngest, I had less time with my mother than my siblings did. There are fewer pictures of us together. There are a number of pictures that my mother took of me, but so few with her in them. So few, in fact, that I could only really find two that were of a decent quality. There may be more hiding in photo albums that don’t belong to me, but I only have two of us together. Two.

Time can be cruel. It can take things from you. The sound of someone’s voice. The feel of their embrace. The soothing calm of their presence. Sometimes when I comb through my memories, I hear my sister’s voice instead of my mother’s (they sound very similar, but not the same). I have to fight to correct it. I cling to the sound of her laughter and pull it back from the abyss. I have a stranglehold on the memory of her singing me to sleep. Each year time threatens to take a little more of her from me. I have to fight back. Some years I am more successful than others.

Mother’s Day is the same. Some years, the day is filled with so much joy and amazement that I have no time to be sad at what I have lost. I’m too busy rejoicing in what I have gained. But there are some years that amongst the sweet happiness there is also sorrow. The tears are sometimes happy and sometimes sad, but either way, they are common on such occasions.

After my oldest son was born, we were part of a special Mother’s Day tradition at our church for new mothers. A woman sat at my table and started a conversation with me and before we were through I discovered that she, many moons ago, had been one of my mother’s students. We were in a different town–a different state even–but we made the connection. It was like a message from Mama. “I’m here. He’s beautiful. Congratulations.” And my heart was filled with joy. I cried.

So you see, not all of my tears on Mother’s Day are sad ones. But I often cry at least once. Even if just for a moment or two. And this year, I wasn’t ready to write about it all before her day. I can’t explain why writing about her two days after Mother’s Day is easier than writing about her two days before. It just is.

That’s why I didn’t write about Mother’s Day this year for my 10 Things. And to anyone out there who can relate, it’s not wrong to cry. Perhaps our experience with our grief can help others who are just starting such a journey.

In any case, Happy (late) Mother’s Day. I hope it was beautiful and that your tears were happy ones.

Poor Doggo

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My dog, Major, is ten years old. For a Boxer, that’s on the older side. He still runs and jumps like a puppy when he gets the urge, but there is a lot more gray in his face than there used to be. He groans sometimes when he gets off the floor and I relate more than I’d like to admit. Still, he’s pretty spry for an old pup so I don’t think all that much of it most of the time.

Apparently, neither does he.

This weekend, we visited some family members who have a back deck that sits about six feet off the ground. It has stairs leading down to the yard, but it’s not fully enclosed. While we were there, Major came to lay in the shade of the deck while we ate lunch together. He was perfectly content while everyone was sitting on the deck with him, but when we got up and began meandering about, he didn’t want to be left out.

I sent him down the stairs so he could walk around to where the kids had run off to. He lumbered down them and turn around and came right back. I thought he was coming to double check for any dropped crumbs from the table before I finished clearing it off. He did, but after he discovered that all the food had been eaten or properly put away, he gave up and began sniffing elsewhere. This activity took him to the edge of the deck, the side with no stairs. He sniffed. He turned his heads toward the kids around the edge of the house. And I knew he was going to jump. The big dummy.

He jumped down into the yard from the deck, no stairs. The drop was taller than me.

Of course, he limped a bit when he landed, but otherwise seemed just fine. We loaded him in the car and headed home. He was doing okay until he gave up on our stairs and had to be carried down them last night. This morning I took him to the vet. He has a sprained knee and the vet gave us some pain pills for him.

I explained the whole scenario to the vet. He said that when he was young, he and his cousins used to jump off the top of his grandmother’s chicken coop. It was a tall coop, but they never once got hurt. If he tried to make that same jump today, he’d be in pain for days, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be tempted. It seems my dog fell to the temptation, in more ways than one.

He’s a male, through and through. He refuses to accept that he’s getting older and still does things that his puppy self could easily accomplish, but that are harder on him now than they used to be. When he was younger, he could take a running start and jump our back fence. It’s six feet tall too. He hasn’t made the jump in years, mostly because he knows the food is on this side, but he was apparently still convinced he could.

Men.

In any case, he has some pain pills to help him through the soreness and has been put on exercise restrictions for the next week. No stairs. No jumping.

This should go over well.

Wish him (and me) luck. It’s needed.

My Anniversary

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There will be only one post from me this week because I’m taking a long weekend. My husband and I will be celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary. We don’t have a ton of things planned since we already took the kids on a cruise in January. That cruise was our gift to each other, and the lion’s share of Christmas gifts for the kids. But still, we’re going to spend some time together and even see the new Avengers movie. I promise not to post spoilers.

My husband and I met when we in our Freshman year of college. We were just nineteen years old at the time. We’d only be dating for six months when he proposed. But we didn’t get married until after graduation. I had made a promise to my father that I would finish school before getting married, and I kept that promise. We graduated together in December of 2008 and got married in April of 2009. He was working in public accounting at the time so we had to wait until April to have a chance at the time off and a honeymoon.

A decade later our life together looks a little different. Not every day is easy, but all of them are worth it. The day I married him, I didn’t think it was possible to love him more than I already did. But now we have two kids together and I love him a little more every time I see him being a great dad to our children.

We dated for six months. We were engaged for four years. We’ve been married for ten years. It’s been almost a decade and a half since this relationship started. It hasn’t all been easy, but it’s all been worth it.

So this week, I’m taking a little time off to celebrate. Matthew Broderick as Ferris Bueller famously stated that “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Life does indeed move fast, so my husband and I are going to stop and look around a little this week. We have a great life together. I’d hate to miss it.

The 7 Day Book Challenge

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books in black wooden book shelf
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I’m related to a librarian. I don’t want to brag or anything, but she’s pretty cool. I mean, to a book nerd that’s like being related to an Avenger. Last week she tagged me in the #7DayBookChallenge where I was supposed to post a book, each day for seven days straight, that I loved and offer no commentary, explanation, or review.

It was hard.

First, I had to pick only seven books. Do you know how hard it is for a book lover to pick ONLY seven books? Each day was a debate. I ended up mixing it up, genre-wise, so that I spread the love around. It was still tough.

Second, I want to talk about the books I love. I want to offer up commentary. I want to share even their flaws with other readers who would enjoy them. Each day I tagged a friend to also complete the challenge. One of them didn’t even try to post without commentary. She said it wasn’t in her nature and so every book came with a post about why she loved it and when in her life it meant the most. I enjoyed that too.

So I’m challenging all of you. You can participate in the #7DayBookChallenge, you can talk about your favorite books in great detail, or you can just commit to talking about the books you love a little more often.

Also, if you’re looking for my picks for the week, check my Instagram (kswatts).

Trifling Tuesday

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The unplanned blog absence last week was because my kids were on Spring Break. I lost track of what day of the week it was at first and then I decided to roll with it. I’m sure my tens of readers were sorely disappointed and all, but my kids start back to school again this week so I’m back. Go ahead, break into a happy dance.

I jest.

Anyway. While I was on hiatus, a lot happened around the world. In happy news, my younger son turned two! It was a small celebration, but it was pretty momentous for us. He got a big boy bed and we dismantled his crib. I’m still struggling with how I feel about that. My baby isn’t a baby anymore. But he’s so excited to have a bed just like big brother. The smiles and giggles are magic.

News from elsewhere isn’t as happy.

Storms ravaged….everywhere. Here in the States, Nebraska is mostly underwater. I’m sorry. Eventually, the floodwaters will recede and you will surely not be alone in the recovery efforts. For many, too much has been lost, I know. I’m not good with condolences, but you are not forgotten. Know that. You are still on the hearts of your countrymen.

In New Zealand, hate struck hard.

To the Muslim community, I’m sorry for your loss and the hurt you must be feeling. I don’t know what else to say. I don’t hate you. For what it’s worth to know that one, random, rambling, Christian, white girl from the States, does not hate you. My God tells me to love my neighbor. You are my neighbor. No matter where in the world you may be.

You’d think I’d be better with words as a writer, but I’m not. The truth is out.

One word I do know is trifling. In English, if something is trifling that means it’s trivial. Small. There are enough big problems in the world. I, as an individual, don’t have a lot of power to change that. But I can do small things. I can show kindness. It won’t solve much, but it surely can’t make it worse.

If anyone wants to join me, please do. Look for little ways to be kind, to take care of each other. Recycling. Nice words. Help someone up. Listen. Something small. It may be trivial to you, but maybe it won’t be trifling for someone else.

It’s corny. And maybe stupid. I’ve certainly done things that are plenty of both. But I’m starting today. It’ll be a trifling Tuesday. And then maybe tomorrow will look a little bit better.

 

 

Blind Date with a Book

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For the month of February, my local library is hosting an event called “Blind Date with a Book”. A selection of books has been wrapped up so nobody can see the cover. This means you have no idea who the author is or what the title might be. Each package has a card with a code for the library staff to use to check the book out to you (so they don’t have to open it on the spot) and a genre for the book inside the package. You find a genre that you usually like to read and pick a package at random, take the book home, and fill out the rating and review card to return with the book.

I checked out my book this week. I haven’t had a chance to open it yet so the only thing I know about it so far is that it’s a Romance. I’m stoked. Even if I end up disliking the book, the concept is fun. As my librarian put it while she checked out my “blind date”, “If you love it, great! You might have just discovered a new author to follow. If not, no harm no foul and you can always try again if you’d like.”

As far as Valentine’s themed promotions go, I think this one is the best I’ve seen in a long time. Nobody is left out. It doesn’t matter if you’re married, single, dating, or completely uninterested in all things romantic. Anybody can find a genre they like and have a fun “blind date”. Just like in real life, there is no guarantee your “blind date” will go well and you may end up abandoning it early on. Or it might be fun and refreshing. You might have a hot date with a Thriller; an out of this world good time with a Sci-Fi; a magical night with a Fantasy. Okay, my maturity level is dropping. I’ll stop.

Anyway, here’s hoping my blind date goes well. I’ll have to check in with y’all next week and let you know!

 

Homepage Update

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So I decided to update the homepage today instead of working on a blog post. New year, new aesthetics. And a new “tagline” that better outlines all my topics of discussion.

In case anyone is interested though, here’s an explanation of each of the new pictures.

chapel

This is the Chapel of Memories at Mississippi State University. I graduated from MSU back in 2008 and got married in this chapel in 2009. I lived in the dormitory next door back in the day and the bell tower saved me from oversleeping on more than one occasion. The building itself was built from the bricks salvaged from Old Main Dormitory after it burned. Old Main (originally just “the main dormitory building”) was the first dorm on campus (built in 1880) and, after four expansions, was the largest college dorm in the country. Four stories high with more than 500 rooms, it housed over 1,500 students at a time. It burned on January 22, 1959 (sixty years ago this month!). As a tribute to all that was lost, bricks were salvaged from the rubble and used to build a campus chapel. It was dubbed the Chapel of Memories and, along with the bell tower, sits in the main part of campus, diagonal from the Colvard Student Union.

eudoraweltylibrary

This is from Eudora Welty’s house. She’s a famous writer from Mississippi. Her nieces once complained that whenever they visited her, they had to move stacks of books just to have a place to sit down. I don’t see the problem with that. Also, if you ever think your family is a little crazy, give The Ponder Heart a read. I read it in my Southern Literature class in high school and it has influenced my own writing voice in several ways. Also, it makes me giggle.

magnolia

A magnolia. The state flower of Mississippi. Most people think of magnolia trees as smaller trees used to decorate a landscape. However, they can grow to be quite enormous given the right conditions. In fact, when I was very young my family lived out on a farm. The semi-circle driveway that came in off the glorified turn row leading to our house curved around a magnolia tree that was over fifty feet tall. As far as I know, it’s still there, but I haven’t been back in many, many years. I used to love to climb that tree and remember my biological mother, God rest her soul, yelling at me to get down before I broke my neck or got snake bit.

kudzu

Kudzu, aka The Vine that Ate the South. You cannot kill this stuff, and it covers everything it touches. When the world ends and all of us are gone, cockroaches and kudzu will keep Keith Richards company. But seriously, if ever they figure out how to make useful products out of kudzu to replace plastics, it’ll save the planet. It grows so fast that “sustainability” will never be an issue.

So that’s it. Those are my big updates. A tagline and some pictures. It sounds so simple that I won’t tell you how long it took me. Let’s pretend it was quick.

A Hairy Situation

On By K. S. WattsIn Uncategorized2 Comments

I’ve mentioned on the blog before that I have curly (wavy, if you want to get technical) hair. Most people who know me didn’t know that until recently. Some of them still don’t know that this is my natural hair instead of the board-straight locks that they have been accustomed to seeing on my head. You might be wondering how that’s even possible. Because every day for twenty years I either wore a bun or flat-ironed my hair. Every. Single. Day.

When I was a little girl, my sisters loved to play with my hair. I was like their little doll. My middle sister practiced braiding on my hair so she could see how different techniques would look on our hair. And then, when her hair started to get curlier, she continued to practice on me because my barely-there waves were easy to manipulate. But then middle school happened.

My sisters (and my brother, for that matter) are several years my senior. So by the time I started middle school, they had all moved on to college or careers. I was suddenly the lone kid in the house. So you can imagine my horror when puberty, in all of its benevolent glory, changed my dark honey, subtle waves into a dark molasses, frizzy nest. Braces and acne, and the plethora of other pubescent problems weren’t enough. No, I also got to have hair reminiscent of a labradoodle who stuck their paw in a light socket. Awesome. And there was nobody around to commiserate. Even better.

Cue my very own Regina George. For the sake of this post, let’s call her M. Now, M was a popular girl with an “it’s my world and you just live in it” attitude and gorgeous blonde hair. She wasn’t always nice to people and people, for the most part, didn’t care because she was M. For reasons unknown to me, in sixth grade, M decided to make me her new project. I was the Elphaba to her Galinda (with a Ga!). She was determined that she could take my no make-up, messy bun, jeans and t-shirt style and burn it to the ground so I could rise like a phoenix from the ashes. Well, I’m in my 30s now and am still partial to jeans and t-shirt, but do at least throw on (at minimum) some mascara before I’ll agree to leave the house, so she won some and she lost some. But back then, her real battleground was my hair.

She curled it (and burned my forehead with a curling iron in the process). She hot rolled it. She fluffed, styled, and quaffed. She would ooh and ahh until she realized that my hair didn’t “fall” like hers did after she curled it. It stayed in those tight ringlets up next to my head and made me look like Shirley Temple after a bender. It was not cute. So she changed her tactics. She crimped it. All the rage back in the day, it is something that should never, ever be done to someone with remotely frizzy hair. I went from light socket labradoodle to the love child of Hermione and Einstein. Y’all.

Then she had an epiphany. She took the plates off of her crimper (yeah, I know, I’m dating myself here. I’ve already admitted I’m in my 30s, though, so meh) and traded them out for flat ones. She straightened my hair. Suddenly, my dark hair matched M’s style completely. She squealed in delight. In less than a year (it took me a while to convince my dad, who just didn’t understand the need for a twelve-year-old to have anything other than a hair dryer as part of her daily routine), I had a flat iron of my very own. I never did become one of the popular girls, but I didn’t care. I had awesome hair!

The next year, my father remarried and I moved far away from M, but my flat iron came with me. However, there was already a girl in my new school who had my same first name, large blue eyes, and gorgeous, perfectly straight, dark locks. People confused the two of us at first. She was hard to compete with, so after a while, I gave up. Messy buns with a halo of frizzies got me through the day, and through sports practices too.

Little changed over the next decade. When I wanted to look nice, my flat iron ruled the day. When I didn’t care, messy bun it was. When I first became a mom and had even less time to get ready, there was the very occasional day when I left the house with my waves and curls on display, but I had to be desperate.

Fast forward to this year. Medical issues arose and one of the less-than-glorious symptoms of my particular issue was hair loss. Until this year, if I wanted to know what my scalp looked like, I had to physically separate and restrain sections of my hair to see it. It took effort. And no small amount of it. But after my hair began to shed, if I didn’t style my hair just right, small white patches could be seen. I was heartbroken. I was scared. Moreover, I was more insecure about my hair than I had been since before that first time M introduced me to heat styling. All the soul-crushing angst of puberty, none of the youthful glow to accompany it.

My doctor pointed out that I should do whatever I could to treat my hair more gently. My hair loss might stop. It might not. It might grow back, it might not. No matter what, it had the best chance of being healthy if I did my best to make it so. The only way to do that was to stop heat styling and all the other harmful things I was doing. It was time to embrace my natural waves and curls.

It’s been a few months and I can tell you that on a good hair day, I have grown to love my waves and curls. I wonder why on earth I covered them up for so long. On not so good days I miss my flat iron so much it hurts. I’m still insecure about my hair, but I know what I’m doing now is better than what I’ve done for the last two decades. And this time around, I have the benefit of knowing what my middle school self didn’t yet know–it’s okay to be me.

I have pondered, though, why I spent so many years in an exclusive relationship with my flat iron and never really got to know my curling iron (which I have also ditched) or hot rollers (which my oldest sister had an intense love affair with in the late 80s). Well, in most media, when the nerd girl gets a make-over, they straighten her hair. When a girl is an outcast, she has crazy, frizzy, curly hair. Mean girls, villains, or side characters, might have heat styled, twisting locks. But protagonists don’t. And I didn’t want to be a sidekick in life. I wanted straight hair.

Even the shampoo aisle makes it clear. There is an entire aisle of (harmful) straight hair products with a smaller section of healthier products, all still meant for straight hair. On the next aisle, there is a tiny section of healthy, curly hair products. Curly-haired girls are an afterthought and never the main attraction. So when we connect over our curls via social media, no wonder we retweet and like until our hashtags go viral. We have to support each other because we know nobody else will.

So here I am, embracing my natural hair and declaring that, at least in my life, the protagonist has curly hair. There will be no make-over montage (at least not involving hair). There will be no surprise reveal. This is me. This is my hair. I’m going to slay the dragon and look fabulous doing it, thank you very much.

Curly hair, don’t care.

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