There just aren't enough hours in the day. In my case last night, enough pain pills on the face of this earth. Early Christmas present from my mommy, I got my hair braided. It took two women six hours to twist up just about every strand of hair on my head and last night I could barely turn the damn thing.
But I look good.
I looked in the mirror and saw myself first the first real time after the tylenol kicked in and I saw her the girl I love seeing. The one that looks her age instead of years older. I missed her. She's awesome. She's cute, she has confidence, and she holds her head up high all the time and not just because twenty pounds of hair is pulling it back so she has to.
Back story time!! Gather round all yee readers! Everyone comfortable? Good.
When I was in the fifth grade, I was finally able to go to the Intermediate school in my district. We had moved to Twinbrook a year or so before hand, but my mother had continued to take me every morning to Red Bank schools. At middle school she decided it was time to send me to Ocean schools because she worked at the middle school in Red Bank and she knew two things. I would get special treatment because my mother was a big wig in the school (She was an English teacher but depending on the circumstance she wielded almost as much power as the principal. A lot of people were afraid of her.) and two, eventually I would end up in her class. She wanted neither. So she put me in OTIS; Ocean Township intermediate School.
Now the summer before fifth grade, my mom thought I should try the newest style among black women at the time: The Jehri curl. Mothers, don't ever do this to your daughters. If, God forbid, this hairstyle ever comes back, don't do this to your kid. You might remember this style. Think Michael Jackson early 90's or if you've ever seen the movie Coming to America, just remember Soul Glo and you know exactly what I'm talking about. Anyway, whatever. The problem was not long before that I had gotten a relaxer in my hair and you can't have any chemicals in your hair when you get a curl so my hair went from down my back to maybe an inch long in the space of a day. I cried. Hard.
I had a deep voice, I had a chest so small the bra size was actually measured in negative numbers as in a training bra (What exactly are they training?) was totally pointless. I insisted on wearing one but it was still totally pointless. And now I had boy hair. And I hated wearing frilly, girly anything. I wore jeans and sneakers.
First day at the bus stop and the bus driver, her name was Doris decided what better way to keep her bus in order than by separating the boys from the girls. She put me with the boys. I stood there looking at her like she was stupid. Couldn't she see that I was a girl? I mean wasn't it obvious in my polo shirt, jeans and blue sneakers? Didn't my black and hunter green bookbag give it away? Really? She thought I was a boy? I didn't see it. When she yelled at me I told her I was a girl. She then accused me of trying to sit with the girls in hopes of getting a girlfriend and then read me her own version of the riot act on why kids shouldn't think about boyfriends and girlfriends in fifth grade when we were all about nine and ten. I calmly repeated that I was a girl and I wanted to sit with the girls. She told me that she didn't have time for this and to take my seat. I took a seat. With the girls. To which she physically grabbed my shoulder and tried to force me to the back with the boys. I stood up, dropped my back and listed my shirt to show my very useless training bra and asked her would a boy wear this. (My mom had insisted I get the trainers with the pretty pink and white checks and the pink boy smack in the middle. I had the trainers that actually looked like bras not sport bras.)
Well, that shut her up. Set the bus laughing so hard we literally rocked it and poor Doris never ever regained the upper hand over anyone on that bus again. She did report me. They tried to suspend me. My mother marched into the school and asked them if they rather I should have dropped my pants and showed them the girly underwear instead of raising my shirt and showing my bra. Would that have been acceptable? They didn't actually have an answer that I heard for this but they let me back on the bus and back in school. My mother made me wearing earrings at all times and she started getting me braids with extensions in my hair then. I looked like a girl.
Doris retired from Ocean after that. I really wish she hadn't've because then we ended up with a leacherous old man that liked to touch the girls on the bus. Mainly me. To this day when I have the really bad nightmares, the two most prominent faces are of that old guy and the guy that raped me in college. In the bus drivers case I was saved in my eighth grade year (two years of this abuse in) by a bus lot monitor that finally looked up and noticed that I was trying to get away from this guy. He had noticed that of the two busses that went to my complex I always tried to get on the other one that didn't drop off near my house and that I would look very upset when they made me get on my assigned bus. He noticed that on the days I wasn't on my bus, my name appeared on the late bus list (which meant that I had chosen to walk an extra mile home versus the less than eighth of a mile my bus would have dropped me at.) and then he saw what he needed to see which was the old man trying to actually touch me. I missed the bus that day. A random teacher with a CDL license drove the bus that day. I was taken to the office and my mom was made to come in and listen while I described the last two hellish years of having to be with that driver. They were all made to listen to the stuff I had been trying to tell them for two years. The stuff they had been ignoring. Six more girls came out in the next few weeks. Of the seven of us, one other girl and I were on the worst end of it. He had actually touched her. The last I heard from him was he was arrested. I honestly didn't care if he burned in hell. We got a female driver for the remainder of the year. The boys drove that poor woman to shaking but we got a female.
Ninth grade I joined the band and most days I stayed after for marching band practice so that my mom came to get me at five ish. I took the bus occasionally but not very often.
So anyway. Back to the matter at hand. My head. I may post a pic when it stops really hurting but for now, I am on my way to my buddy's house so I can watch Reign with her. Trying to make this a Thursday tradition.
Ta Bloggies! Love you!
