#BTW! before anyone goes 'its not black history month wth thats february'

[jupitercl0uds]

suddenly upset because when i was about 8 and i pictured/drew my future self it always looked like this

im not upset that i know ill never look like that. im upset because i was so obsessed with looking like that and i wanted to do so by 12.

my skin was darker than everyone in my class. not by much at all, but i still hated it. i'd insist it was 'just a tan' (even in the dark, cold british north) and that it'd go away eventually. maybe i was just a bit dirty and if i washed it enough it would go away. i used to wish i could peel of the entire top layer of my skin to reveal super pale skin, so pale that you could see every vain and the white of my bones.

and hair has always been a big thing for me. ever since i was little.

when i was 4, i used to have all sorts of proper afro hairstyles. i distinctly remember having afro puffs a lot when i was in nursery or reception. my hair type slowly changed to type 3 in like y1 or something. afro puffs turned to bunches, but then i decided i didn't like them and changed to plaits.

from reception way up until year 8, that's what i had. plaits, sometimes buns. and all that time, i wished for it to be straighter, more fair. the ends of my plaits always curled and i hated it. i'd pull on them, but it wouldn't work. it still curled. i remember being 6 and waiting in the school lunch line. i watched all the girls tie little plaits in the end of their plaits. they would literally tie knots with their hair. and it was so shiny and smooth. and they would take out their plaits and brush their hair and have completely different hairstyles. i tried to join in. when they combed their fingers through my hair and tried to style it, all i heard was 'oooh... er... i don't know how.'

i remember before all that, when i was a toddler, when i pictured my future self, i imagined a slightly fatter, slightly more muscular version of the woman from ratatouille. i don't look like her in terms of my face, but if you straightened my hair and bulked my up a bit, actually, yeah, i do kinda look like that. i dunno how i guessed i'd look like that, i was so young that all my facial features were all smooshed together, my eyes were giant and lower on my face and i was the normal amount of chubby for a toddler.

maybe if i were 10 years younger, and now i was the 5 y/o, things would be different. maybe all the girls would know what to do to help me play hairdressers as the customer. i doubt it, but i hope so. the only thing i can really think to end this with is happy black history month