Making Changes

I had this doll when I was a kid named Jaslene. She was a Bratz doll who was Hispanic (at least in my head) with long brown hair, sparkling hazel eyes, who was thin with a B-cup chest and could stand just fine in heels. I loved her. I wished all the time that if I woke up different, I would look like her. To be fair, I didn't like looking like me. From the time Iw as a kid, I didn't want to look like me anymore. I didn't want to be black with short nappy hair and common brown eyes. I didn't want to be short and chubby with a big chest. I wanted to be like the women I admired as a kid.

If I had woken up anyone else, I would've wanted to be Hispanic or Indian or maybe Chinese. I loved their hair. Every person I knew who wasn't black had super long hair. Sometimes it was wavy. Other times it was straight and down to the back of their knees, and I wanted that badly. I would get excited when I was watching America's Next Top Model because all of the Latina/Hispanic and Asian girls looked so pretty after the makeovers. I loved their eyes too. Even when they were dark like mine, the camera always made them shine. The girls were all tall and thin and even the "big" girls looked amazing.

If I wake up tomorrow and am anyone else, I will freak out. Even if a genie heard my wish ten to fifteen years after the fact and made me what I had wanted as a kid, I wouldn't be me anymore. Though I didn't look like how I wanted, I had to learn to love who I am and how I was born. I look like my dad. I have my mom's nose. I mirror the generations before me and I've learned to be proud of that. It's something I plan to teach whatever children I adopt.

Though if I could wake up as anyone else, I'd want to be Gabby Douglas or Simone Biles because come on now. Looks aside, I will never be able to do gymnastics like that, and I want one day to be able to do a backflip without falling on my face.