Beautiful

     One time my family attended an event. I don’t remember exactly what it was but there was music, people were dressed up and plastic tables strained to hold up enormous amounts of food. So it could have been a wedding reception, a baby shower, or a dinner after a prayer meeting. We had taken both cars there at separate times, and my mother arrived later than the rest of us. When she got there she had changed into bright and silky Rwandese robes, she’d put on makeup, and her hair was up in a tight bun. You could almost see each strand of hair stretching back across her scalp towards a shiny mass at the base of her skull, her whole head wanting to show off her face. She was beautiful, and I told her so. I even threw in a little joke about how she was more dressed up than I was. Because somehow everything was a competition with us, to the point that I didn’t even know it when I was thinking in those terms. In this moment she appeared to have won and she made sure everyone heard about it. By the third time she yelled it out loud to someone across the hall I just gently rolled my eyes instead of laughing. She repeated it a few more times. It started to sound less like a compliment and more of a lament. “Moooom, why do you look better than me?” She mimicked a lie and laughed and laughed and I could not for the life of me explain why I felt disgusted.

     This memory has stayed with me a long time. At some point I realized that it is because I cannot recall my mother ever complimenting *me*. I also didn’t realize that fact until I spent time around my aunt who is generous with a lot of things, not just compliments. She tells me I did my hair great or the food I made is delicious. She gives random little gifts, earrings or half a bottle of expensive name brand perfume. For nothing! And every time I’m surprised at this I remember that it is because my mother never did this with me. It has taken me all this time to fully understand that my mother didn’t love me the right way because she doesn’t love herself the right way. She let me do my own makeup for my 8^th grade graduation, and let me tell you, no one who loved me would have let me out of the house looking like that! I think she found it easier to love me and to show she cared when I was a toddler or small child. There are plenty of pictures of cute ass little me, posing in the same outfit all over the house. As I’ve grown though the pictures have gotten less and less. There is nothing positive about the comments I remember her making about me as far back as 9 years old. Or herself. Or a random woman walking through the mall on a hot day, the kind where the sun beats down through the windows and you go inside stores mostly for that initial AC blast.

     “Look at her Kibuci (my nickname since I was born, pretty much) who is bigger, her or you?” Both my parents liked to play this game with me. My father dabbled in it occasionally but for my mother it was constant. I would pause whatever I was doing, put my book or fork or whatever I happened to be distracting myself with down and I would compare myself to whoever had just been pointed out. I would scrutinize the size of her arms, the swing of her hips. I would take note of the jewelry she wore, and of how tightly the bulge at her middle strained against her pants. I would bargain with myself. She looks like she’s smaller, but I don’t have as much of a second chin. Or, my belly doesn’t hang down that much but like she’s given birth so she has more of an excuse. These would tally up to some sort of score that would then let me know who was a better person, me or that woman.

     What is even more sickening than this twisted pattern of thought is the fact that I still catch myself doing this sometimes. I’ll start debating whether or not someone is filling out a dress “right” and I’ll jerk myself away from that. And during the mental scolding I’ll give myself I’ll take the time to be grateful that I don’t have to stay locked in that pattern of thinking anymore! It makes me feel sorry for my mother because she just has no idea. She has no idea that things can be great or just okay for literally everyone. No one* has to be “better”.

 Beyoncé is better. All we can do is bask in her light*