Goddess Worship

In high school they were older than me; thinner with lighter skin and longer hair. They were the most popular juniors and seniors. Goddesses. During my freshman year, when I wasn’t juggling my six classes, show choir, homework, and daily chores at home, I daydreamed about the beauties at my all-black school in southeast Atlanta. I studied every move, envied every perfectly curled strand of hair. I wanted to be each one of the group of five girls that I handpicked to be my personal idols. They were all my direct opposite.

Being a dark-skinned girl living and attending school in an African American-centered community would seem to be the ideal for nurturing self-esteem and belief in one’s own beauty, but when I entered high school in 1985, girls my shade of brown were not “in.”  I was ignored by all the boys in my age group and older during the first half of every school year. In the fall and winter my chocolate skin and thick mane, which never really took to hair relaxers, did not equip me with the tools to compete with the café au lait and ecrus who had long, thin hair that reacted enthusiastically to the chemical process and thighs that I would have to starve myself to obtain. When spring bloomed and coats and sweaters were put away, my curvy body attracted attention from boys that it took me years to understand. The goddesses always pulled the top quality guys as well as the wannabes. What I pulled was the occasional cute guy who was only looking to get lucky, the creepy guy no one wanted, and a few in between.

Somewhere in the middle of the spring semester of that first year of high school I decided that the key element of the goddesses that I had a chance at emulating was thinness. That is when I started on the bulimia-exercise track, followed by attempts at anorexia. Fortunately, my mother stepped in and forbade my daily hour-long workouts and shoved sandwiches in my mouth. I resented her, but I am so grateful that she intervened and stopped the full blown eating disorder I was developing.
As the high school goddesses graduated and I became an upperclassman, I gained my own brand of popularity. I was part of the academic achievers clique and I performed in every school program. After my senior year, still dark-skinned with only slightly thinner thighs, I was dropped off at a predominately black college in Alabama and found a replacement goddess within the first six months.

My new idol came courtesy of my first husband. His sister was, yes,
light-skinned, thin, pretty and popular. Pattern? Well, her hair was short, so that was progress. Even though I was surrounded by many more women of color in every imaginable hue between beige and coal and there was a growing interest in women with my coloring, the lighter end of that range continued to be on my most wanted list. During that time, every move my sister-in-law made—new dress, new haircut, change of lip gloss—had my full attention. She had the thighs I dreamed about and an outgoing personality that my introverted make-up could not twist into. She wasn’t the most brilliant person I’d met on campus, but she always looked great and could talk football; pretty much solidifying her standing with guys. Her brother and family worshiped at her altar with the same dedication as I did.

My husband was so devoted to his sister and mother that he didn’t have much left over for me. When we parted, I was left with a beautiful three-year-old son and a changing outlook.  Becoming a mother had unleashed the woman that had been blooming underneath the silly teenager. I was still hung up on my weight, but after having a baby I found it difficult to insult the body that brought the love of my life into the world. I turned to exercise and better eating habits.

It was some time during the years between my marriage at 19 and my son’s second birthday when I was 24 that I saw a picture of the 90s girl group, Zhane. One was dark and the other light-skinned; both were incredibly beautiful. I was drawn to the lighter one, Jean Norris, but not for my usual reasons. Her head was shaved.  I wanted that look even though it went against all of my previous desires for hair that flowed down my back, or maybe because of it. Somehow, I knew it would fit me, bringing out my father’s large eyes and my mother’s high cheekbones. It took a while to get up the nerve, but when I finally did shave it, I felt liberated and beautiful for the first time in my life. There was nothing to hide behind. There was just me. Looking in the mirror I realized that I had wasted so much time envying others that I’d missed out on seeing me. I had worshiped so many women that I failed to love who I was.

I decided at a young age that I was the opposite of perfection. I still am, but now I cherish that. Perfection is unattainable, and the concept only exists to drive us crazy. I still worship from my very own pool of goddesses, but now these women are far from flawless. They’ve been through hardships, disappointments and neglect. They’ve raised children and loved men who were both good and bad to them. They’ve shown me how to move when I felt like sitting down and to stand still when I wanted to run. And as exceptional as my new goddesses are in their various shades and shapes, I don’t feel inadequate around them. I feel emboldened and empowered with a rising confidence that one day I will be in a position to give guidance to a young woman whose soul is as lost as mine once was.

Melissa Brown Levine is a freelance book reviewer and contract librarian. She has reviewed for Independent Professional Book Reviewers, Mid West Reviews, and ForwordReviews.com.  

~Melissa Brown Levine