My Hair ... & Colors

My favorite color is blue.

I am not sure when coloring my hair became my staple, but I do remember why I dyed my hair the first time; I dyed my hair because of my paleness. Now please do not mistake my need for color for the lack of love for the skin I am beautifully wrapped in; my paleness through Winter might drive me insane but it's my freckles in the Summer that makes it all worth it.

I've always had a "loud" personality, a frequent reminder that I am not here just to exist, I am here to change the World, and though at times the World has changed me, that has merely become a fraction of who I am today. Ever since I was a little girl, my neighbors told my mother that I was a little star; my mother would smile and continue chasing me around the patio to do my long dirty blonde, mostly in a bird nest state, hair. My mother has always told me that I was a free bird, growing up surrounded by 5 brothers that sat me on a garbage top and zoomed me down the hill toward the river at the age of 3, I couldn't have agreed more.

I grew up with my grandfather, Jose, he is the man I consider my father, I however did meet my sperm donor when I was a kid, I don't remember much as the memory of him is so faint that I struggle to even remember the color of his eyes, he was a corner drunk, and every one knew who's child I was by the way he would trophy me around his chicken fights friends at the bar. Now, I by no means will ever paint the picture of him being a bad man, because to be honest, I have no idea if he was a good or bad man, what I do know is that he was not MY father.

My mother was very young, she had my oldest brother at 15 years of age, then marry my sperm donor because she didn't want to be back at her father's house, I am guessing their marriage was not a great one as she cheated on him with my younger brother's father, the one that almost killed her with a machete in front of the whole main road, which led us to Rafael a few years later.

The very first time I dyed my hair was black, and it was a few weeks after Rafael took my innocence. I was angry and I wanted to disappear but it wasn't only anger about what had happened, it was anger because the marks stood black and blue for weeks, I hated my paleness because it was a reminder of the hurt and the anger I carried inside. That was the first thing I did without my mother's permission, and I got screamed at and grounded for it, I was not allowed to go anywhere, and so without knowing my consequences led Rafael back to my bed, while my mother was at Bible study.

The rest is written and healed from.

At 30, when healing became a shattering mirror from the skies, I would color my hair and box myself in that moment and time, once I found myself able and willing I would move on to another color, it wasn't until I shaved all of my hair that I learned that my hair color was the rainbow after the rain, and that I no longer needed to chase a color to heal, because my soul was healing.

My hair color represents something as deep as the ocean, I shaved my hair to my scalp twice, and twice I was rebuild, I was able to forgive my sperm donor for choosing alcohol instead of me, I forgave my mother for not knowing and I forgave myself for blaming my 11 year old body for a grown man's decision.

Blue for me, means freedom.

I don't color my hair for validation, I color my hair to say thank you to the World for making me walk the valleys and crawl the mountain, to be here.