Normal Girl
My favorite movies include but not limited to, The Labyrinth, Howard the Duck, Crooklyn and The Goonies. My first album was No Doubt's Return to Saturn, following Kittie's Oracle. Growing up, I wore arm warmers, I didn't know how to do my hair and I developed pretty early. I've been described as Emo, Trying to be white, and a little Mexican boy. ( 9th grade was rough y'all.)
I've been thinking about my growth and what being a 'normal girl' really meant to me. Growing up in a mostly white school, I had crushes on all these white boys that wouldn't even look at me. Fuck it, lets be real, NO boys were looking at me. So right then and there, I got a sense that I wasn't "ideal." This pattern continued throughout high school, and early adult years. I kept trying to tame myself, I wanted to be like Plain Jane so badly.
I've dated mostly white men all my life *insert, sense of shame and feeling like I need to explain myself* and throughout all those relationships, I found myself trying to change for each of them. I found myself, trying yet again to not be too eccentric, too outspoken, too full of life. But why? Weren't these the same characteristics that they were attracted to in the first place? When I got comfortable with them, did I get too real? I guess it was the idea of me that they fell for first, but then they realize that dating a Black woman is going to be real work. Work that most aren't willing to do.
I've been sitting here, listening to Sza's Normal Girl on repeat.
Her words, speaking my life.
*It's about to get a little DARK*
But.
Both my parents passed, so when she say's " a girl, my daddy could be proud of."
That shit hits home.
But today.
Today I can say, fuck the normal girl.
I don't want to be her anymore.
In truth, I will never be the normal girl, and you can't make me.
Moral of this rant?
Black girls, you are enough. Embrace your own uniqueness. When they tell you, your too weird, too wild, too loud, too you.
Smile, because you, in that moment are doing it right.
And that scares them.