Why I Created Girl Be You!
From 1st grade until high school I was teased for who I was, let me be clear I was a NERD! . Back in the 90’s I was “Four Eyes” every day at school, Warby Parker, Zenni or any other fashionable eyewear line just Pearle Vision.The library was my secret escape, peace and books.
My time in junior high was spent attempting to navigate being a dark skin black girl who would escape to the bathroom stall just to read a book. I wasn’t popular. My daddy’s church was in the community I grew up in, everyone thought I was a weird church girl. I was an awkward girl who was desperately attempting to fit into the popular crowd. I was an average student who didn’t feel smart or even confident to thrive in subjects I was good in. I wasn't a ball player like most of the popular girls at school. My mind is filled with memories of being off the beaten path and my nose in a book or pen to a journal much of my childhood.
High school handed me a healthy serving of, “Jee trying to get comfy with Jee.” High school crushes that left me feeling not pretty enough, or cool enough to just be the homie. Transferring to a very white school where my blackness was never celebrated, always questioning what my hair felt like, if where I lived was a house or an apartment. Because my value of course is based upon the type of home we have. I hope you can feel and hear my sarcasm. My self-esteem was based on how successful I could manage in white spaces while I compared my home life to the generational wealthy kids I had classes with and ran track with. Although a tough journey I started to see snippets of how dope I was as a person.
College brought on a whole new discovery of who I was. From realizing that sex or relationships could never define me. It was my quirkiness, my sense of humor, my ability to see challenges, face it, overcome it. It was in college I realized my resilience along with acknowledging the ability to stay a student of life is what began to allow me to see I am amazing. It was during my college and post college years that my value went from gaining the attention of others to seeing my worth through God’s eyes. His love for me allowed me to pivot in him being my true foundation and strength.
Corporate america taught more lessons of turning inward to see my value, pointing me in the direction of my passion. A few years after my 30th birthday I realized that all of my experiences both good, bad and rock bottom helped me come to the reminder, Girl Be You!
I had been spending so much time attempting to fit the expectations of others. I was comparing myself to them. THEY were an ever changing image, THEYchanged every time I went into a new space. I had been chasing down the idea of someone I was never intended to be.
In each moment of comparing myself I would take a trip back to my childhood. Reminding myself in those moments that I am enough. I had to travel back to the little girl who was fun-loving, smiling from her heart, dreaming big, daydreaming about what her life would like when she grew up. The older I got the closer I connected with that little girl. In thinking about her I thought about all of the little girls, pre-teens, teenagers, and women who need to be reminded they are enough. While we are on this journey we called life we must remember to be honest with yourself, embrace your lessons and losses and love who you are.
I created Girl Be You as a place for me to share my stories as continued lessons through adulthood that we face every single day as a reminder we are always learning.
Girl Be You is a place of love, inspiration and encouragement to continuously BE YOU and not someone else. It is my heart’s desire for each woman who passes by, stops and reads that her heart will be inspired to embrace her full self, flaws and all!