Unfading Scars

Age 8

All I can pretty much remember from my earliest childhood is when I was 8 years old.  I was super hyper, my arms were slender and long and I constantly wore beads attached to the ends of my braided hair. My hair was referred to as  picky, nappy, tangeld well anything else but straight. My skin was dark  brown that I was always reminded of daily.  Each time I looked in the mirror I saw a brown reflection staring back at me.  My knees were darker then the rest of my legs so I was constantly reminded by my dear grandma to " scrub my knees real good with soap and water to get the dirt off."  That was one of the things that confused me because If I wasn't born this color then how come my skin is dirty. At what point did this dirt grasp on to my skin? And why didn't it come off? Yes at 8 I was pretty sure that the brown color of my skin was dirt. And I was sure that my entire family bathed every single  day yet we were all still the same color. It was at the age of 8 I began to realize that I would always be compared to dirt, as it was more apart of me than I wanted to be of it.

   At school my best friend was a Puerto Rican girl whose hair was so long it laye on her back.  Her  skin was pale and she would turn red anytime she smiled to hard or anything touched her with the slightest bit of force or friction. I remember following her around as if  we were attached at the hip. Everywhere she went I was there, every move she made I copied , every word she used I repeated.  I never knew why I was so drawn to her but now I realize it wasn't because of who she was to me it  because of what she was and what she stood for. She was the girl with the lighter skin that I could never have and the long straight hair that I could never grow. She was everything I was not and at 8 I wished that I could be just like her and so I studied her every move in hopes of waking up one day looking just like her.

   My parents were recently sperated when I was 8. I remember their constant arguing everytime my father would come by to visit me and my sister.  Every visit would be the same they would act cordial with one another for a few hours then by the end of the visit they would rip off their disguises and go at one another. It was like watching them divorce all over again except this time we got unwanted front row seats to the show.  I would cover my ears with my hands and clench my teeth until they would stop.  Which eventually they did however this scenario would continue to play out for years and years to come.