A few years ago, I wrote a letter to my daughter after a bad day at school. Over time it’s become a love letter to anyone who needs the message too. May you never forget your differences are your strengths.
Dear precious Penelope,
Your excitement was contagious Friday morning as I let out the braids you slept in to reveal tight curls in your normally straight hair. You couldn’t wait to show your friends, and I love that you put on sunglasses to see if they would recognize you.
My heart broke in half when you later told me another child said that “you aren’t pretty with curly hair,” and it shattered in a million pieces when you tearfully confessed you went to the restroom and wet your hair to try to “flatten” your curls.
Please don’t ever flatten anything about yourself. Not your hair. Not your personality. Not your ambition or your effervescent spirit. Not a single thing.
Never give someone else the power to turn your excitement into embarrassment again. You are beautiful with curls. You are beautiful without curls. You are beautiful from the inside out.
TO YOU, DEAR READER,
Never flatten anything about yourself because of someone else either. Go for that goal, start that hobby, get that haircut, launch that business, make that change. Be as curly as you want to be.
