Sometimes after school, I would ride my bike to 811 Hansfeild Avenue. Something about the abandoned factory and run-down looking gazebo engulfed in rose vines gave me comfort and provided me with safety from the dangers of middle and high school, boys, TV, and society’s expectations.

  I did a lot of thinking in that gazebo, most times I would think about how much I hated Mrs. Rigerou's class and everyone who laughed at me and my, thick, jumbo butterfly braids. I never really understood why my hair suddenly got so much negative attention, my mom did the same butterfly braids for me all throughout elementary and middle school, and no one seemed to care or mind. Maybe it was after all the girls started getting relaxers and keratin hair treatments. I must've missed the memo because I was the only one who still wore my nappy black hair in jumbo butterfly braids with hot pink barrettes. At first when the snickering and whispering began, I tried to ignore it and focus on my schoolwork or hanging out with my friends. But as the snickering and whispering behind my back continued, I became upset and embarrassed. I decided that my jumbo braids were childish and not cute. I remember asking my mom to buy a relaxer kit for my hair. I desperately wanted to have straight, relaxed hair. I continuously harassed my mother to the point where she finally bought a relaxer kit for my hair. I felt a mixture of excitement and relief, I would no longer be known as Rose with the Jumbo braids, I would soon be Rose with the long, straight, hair.

  My mother spent an hour and a half applying the relaxer on my painfully nappy hair; I was so anxious to see how it would come out and excited to rock my new soft, relaxed hair to school the next day. When my mom dried my hair and straightened it out with a hot comb and blow dryer, I realized that I had lost a huge chunk of my hair. The following three weeks were the worst three weeks of my middle school life. It looked like I had a total of four strands of hair; at least those four strands of hair were nice, soft, smooth, and straight. I went to school with a head scarf on for a month. I know for a fact that there was more snickering and whispering behind my back than there was when I went to school with my jumbo butterfly braids. Even my friends would tease me and call me "baldie". It didn't really bother me at first but after a while I got irritated. Why did it matter so much if I didn't have nice long, soft, or silky hair? I had always rocked my jumbo butterfly braids with hot pink barrettes before eighth grade and no one ever bothered me. It was like all of sudden, there was an excruciating spotlight on not only my jumbo braids, but the way I looked. I didn't get it. I felt like I had to have a certain type a look in order for people to accept me. I started to dread going to school, if people weren't laughing at me or whispering about me, they were trying to rip my head scarf off my head. I tried to ignore all the laughter and insults and told myself that I was not my hair, and that I was still beautiful. But for some reason, the sounds of laughter and mockery were louder than my own thoughts in my head. I tried to use make-up get people to focus on my face instead of my hair but because I had no idea how to apply mascara on my eyelashes the right way so not only were my eyelashes clumpy but there was excessive ink on my eyelids. My hair was a source of laughter and now so was my face. I was living in a never-ending a nightmare. I felt like all the Seventeen magazines, fashion advice columns, and makeup tutorials in the world couldn’t help me get the look I wanted. School just became worse; I hated getting on and off the bus in the morning, just to walk into the gates of hell. Most of the time I was lonely, annoyed, and angry but it didn’t take long before I just became lonely and sad. I truly detested eighth grade. I wanted to go back to the time when the only thing kids cared about and paid attention to was snack time and how many toys or dolls you had to trade with. Since eighth grade, I felt like I was continuously surrounded by laughter and malicious ridicule, whether it be because I had big jumbo butterfly braids, clumpy eyelashes, or even if I owned a pair of sketchers. I was defined by what people saw on the outside and I started to think that maybe they were right, I allowed myself to fall into the trap of thinking that my appearance alone, made me who I was and so I was just “Baldie  with the clumpy eyelashes”.

  When I transitioned from high school to middle school, the ridiculous expectations that I felt to look like a size six black Barbie with straight hair while being a size 14, nappy-haired fourteen year old only increased and made me feel unsure of myself. As I got older, I paid a lot more attention to the messages that certain programs and TV shows conveyed. The content was the same as it was when I watched it as an eight year old, but continuously being exposed to the same type of hair, same type of skin, and same type of body on the TV screen, affected me more as a fourteen year old in high school. I would spend hours staring at models in Seventeen magazines and spend the rest of the day either starving myself to the point where my stomach developed a low-pitched growl or wasting the honey, and organic fruits my parents would buy with their hard-earned money to make organic face masks in hopes that I would develop a “Hollywood glow”. It was actually kind of funny because, no matter how hard I would try to change my appearance or try different ways to develop a look that resembled the image of beauty, I somehow fell short. I was chasing an idea that only seemed to get further and further away from my reach. It didn’t matter where I went; school, home, or even the mall; I was constantly reminded of that reality. The only escape from the torment was the comfort that the rose vines all over the gazebo at 811 Hansfeild Avenue gave me. I appreciated the exquisite yet simple beauty of the rose vines. There was nothing I could do or add to the rose vines to enhance their natural beauty, they were perfect the way they were and didn’t need to be decorated with any glitter or paint to be even more beautiful. Yes, the rose vines had some nasty thorns and rusty leaves on them, but I accepted the imperfections. I think the imperfections of the rose vines made them even more beautiful.