Let's talk everything but my forehead.

When I was in primary school, I was a cry baby. Like literally. I cried about everything and anything. All the silly things that people said and did got to me and made me feel sad. I remember people would make fun of my forehead a lot. I know I have a big forehead but they made it look like it was a disability. Everything was fine until somebody mentioned my forehead. I mean, we would be playing well or telling jokes in class but when someone mentioned my forehead, I’d get all emotional and go somewhere where I was alone and probably cry. I was never the person to argue because it would leave me crying. So this one afternoon we were in class for tuition and I was crying. I can’t recall why though but the teacher came in and asked why I was crying and I didn’t respond. When he asked the class, somebody said my pencil was stolen. That was funny to everyone else but me. People were like ‘si uchukue yangu, sasa unalia ju ya pencil na si staedtler!’ I felt really silly. My pencil had been stolen for real and I had asked around for it only to find it later inside my bag. I tried to tell the teacher it was not the reason I was crying but I couldn’t even talk because I had cried a lot. I ended up sleeping on my desk until it was time to go home and I took my things and left without talking to anyone. When I went to high school, in my second year, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to cry. If at all I did, let it be said that I prayed until I cried or it was tears of joy. Anything other than that was not a valid reason for crying. I stopped crying after that and now it became a problem because even when it was time to cry, I couldn’t. When something unfortunate happened and everyone cried I still didn’t, not that I didn’t feel the pain, my eyes just didn’t water. Later when interacting with people and they talk of how crying is good for the body and how it is some sort of therapy I looked at them thinking, ‘Yoh! I haven’t cried in like four years and I’m feeling ok. Actually much better.’ Well, sometimes I feel my eyes get wet with tears when watching an emotional part of a movie and then I get curious to see if I cry cute. By the time I’m getting to a mirror, the tears are gone! Back to my forehead, I realized that it was easy for people to make fun of it because I showed them it affected me by reacting to all the comments. You see, as individuals, we all have something that we are insecure about (for lack of a better word) or at least at some point you were insecure about something. For some, it's their body size, shape, walking style, how they talk among other things. Once as an individual you have not come to terms with whatever it is you are unsure of, people are always going to capitalize on it and try to make you feel like you are wrong for being who you are or like there is a mistake somewhere. If you show people that you are not at peace with yourself they will always use that against you. I am not saying pretend to be fine around people. I mean that before anyone else can make you feel beautiful, find the beauty by yourself. Take your time to love every bit of who you are. If you rely on people to tell you that you are beautiful for you to feel it, when nobody is saying it you will not feel it. True beauty is when you feel it more than people say it. Affirmations are good, they lift our spirit but when you don’t think your body is beautiful or you look good other people say it for nothing. It's kind of like the same with body shaming. It's one individual allowing another to impose their idea of how one should look and it ends up affecting how they see themselves. There is no existing description of how a perfect human should look like. For all I care, perfect could be you but we just don’t see it! Maybe, at first everyone had a big forehead but then we are losing our culture and so some people have small ones. Not that what people think of you matters that much, but when you start to love yourself, they are most likely to see how amazing you are. Once you are comfortable with all aspects of who you are, it becomes hard for people to use that against you plus life becomes much easier for you as an individual. People will always have an alternative way they want you to live or look but in the long run, it's all about you and the earlier you realize it the better. Body shaming is not a cool thing to do. We never really know how much it affects a person. Some people manage to overcome it but others don’t. We can always be a little more kind to each other. More sensitive with the things that we say or how we treat people. Above all, be kind to yourself.