Use Your Stuff To Be A Better You

---

Little me…

Got her wish…was allowed to grow her hair the year after the wig…but should have known there would be consequences…

School picture day…fourth grade…that mother of mine trying to put the hair up for the photo…little me sitting silently on the step stool…not moving…sensing the tension…

Couldn’t get it right…comb tug sigh…comb tug harder sigh…comb harder tug harder sigh…and then…the incident blocked out for years…

Until one day it all came rushing back…commented on that horrible fourth grade picture…that mother of mine responding with…oh you had a bad day that day…

And yes…one of us DID have a bad day that day…that pony tail pulled as hard as a woman could pull…those sighs becoming a curdling scream…

Sobbing me running all the way to school…that little brother of mine running right beside…a bus driver…nice gray haired old man asking if sobbing me was ok…

And that was that…went the rest of the day an island all by herself…no other adult asking if red puffy me was ok…

Wouldn’t have been honest anyway because deep down little me knew it had to be her fault…because she wanted long hair…

And so it is…in life…we all have stuff…stuff that make us who we are…stuff that make us do what we do…use that past to make a better future…

Use that stuff…to be a better you…
​
And that husband of mine…agrees…