Meet Genevieve
#IAMENOUGH
PROVERBS 31:30 NLT “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised”
Three words/phrases that have hurt me:
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“At least you’re pretty”-when I would face a letdown, not achieve a goal, or say/do something seemingly stupid, it wasn’t uncommon for me to hear “at least you’re pretty”. Being pretty was supposed to be a consolation prize for lacking substance in another area. But what am I supposed to do when beauty fades? Feeling pretty on the outside and having nothing on the inside…I was a whitewashed tomb.
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“You’re just like your mother”- my biological mother is a woman who uses her charm and beauty to get what she thinks she wants at the time with NO regard to how it may affect her family, friends and those around her. If meant breaking spirits, destroying marriages, leaving her children, so be it. Being compared to a woman of that character broke me down. When those words were spoken to me it was always spoke in such disappointment and disgust that I would want to die. I didn’t want to have kids because I was afraid I’d turn out like her. I often wondered if her character was genetic or in some other way unavoidable.
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“I bet she thinks she’s all that because she’s light skinned”- Since the parents who raised me were both Black, I identified more with that side of me. Going to a mostly black high school was an eye opener. I would get accused of swinging my pony tail on purpose when I ran track, so I cut my hair. I “talked white”, so I spent hours listening to rap and hip hop, learning how to rap and cuss in hopes that I would sound more like “my people”. I would sit out in the sun or in tanning beds for hours in hopes to be brown instead of yellow. Even my ex-mother in law accused me of being bougie and a gold-digger because well “you know how those light skinned women are.”
In a culture where being light skinned is praised and beauty is coveted, I’ve always felt like those were two things that always held me back. Growing up, it was always a struggle trying to fit in and be accepted with both sides of my culture. I never felt Black enough or Filipino enough. It was a never-ending battle trying to get people to look past my flesh and into my spirit. In school, I work myself to death making good grades in school, working part time jobs, participating in band and other groups, and being all state in sports all the while trying to act like I didn’t care or that I struggled so that I could fit in. I joined the military to prove that I was tough and more than just a pretty face. In my career, I had to always be promoting and achieving in male dominated areas so that I would be taken serious. In relationships, I would love fast and hard; cooking, cleaning, being a ride or die, giving myself away hoping that I would appeal to more than just a man’s flesh. Needless to say my efforts were mostly in vain, pun intended.
It has taken me almost 30 years to realize I am enough! God made me in His image. If people chose to only see my flesh, judge me because of my flesh, or hate me because of my flesh it is a problem with them, not me. I don’t have to feed their flesh.
