My husband said this to me the other night 😽🥰❣️

And he is talking about me being physically beautiful-my face and my body.

While I am on this journey where I'm going back in time and with the help of a trauma-informed therapist, I am examining what felt partially wrong about some of the "pretty and beautiful" comments I've received from boys and men

My therapist asked me why am I comfortable with receiving beauty compliments from women and children, but uncomfortable with the compliments from men. I thought it was just natural to be skeptical of men, especially since I am not the Hollywood beauty standard. 

Why would he ask why I am uncomfortable being called beautiful by men? I thought I was supposed to be uncomfortable. I mean, they're men so are you kidding me?

So one thing I've learned about myself is that the pretty/beautiful comments from men felt like too much to handle. Not because I didn't believe them, but because, well, they are men. I'm also learning how to move forward and fully embrace these comments without any trauma I had at the time of the comments, clouding my view.

My series, "Beauty is Not a Fairytale" is tremendously helping me learn so much!

Beauty is Not a Fairytale(Part 2)
Beauty is Not a Fairytale (Part 3)-Hollywood Don't Like Me
Beauty is Not a Fairytale (Part 4)-Street Harassment vs Beauty Targeting

More to come, eventually, cause chile this is a lot. I have way more harmless pretty/beautiful stories than that. Right now I'm trying to better understand where my therapist is coming from regarding some of the things he's said, like saying, my experiences are rare.

I have begun to realize that comments from boys and men were not "just comments or just compliments," but they sometimes came with too much intensity. This intensity made the comments feel intimate in nature, and that was often just too much for me to understand, especially since these type of comments started as a pre-teen. I never had time to naturally grow and explore my appearance for myself before becoming such a target.

"You were beautiful and it made you a target." 

Note: I was never hurt. Also, I will never over-share and go into detail because doing so does not bring healing and only worries the people who love me. 
Another note: I had issues with Black and white males, but the interesting thing is I was not even around whites that much yet I still as my therapist said, "attracted too much attention" and one of my most traumatic, life-changing incidents was a white man. 
Professional setting, anyway, like I said I'm not gonna share hurtful details.

So it's literally just about which group you are around the most, and of course my Black ass was primarily around Black people. Also there were much wider cultural differences way back then, way way back then in the 1980's and early 1990s. Integration was still a new thing (which I didn't even know at the time. I thought the 1960's is when racism happened. I didn't even know that the 1970's still had wack ass whites against Black people living our God-given damn lives in the country we built.

Anyway, as for the harmless beauty attention but it still was too much and not matching the social setting, I got these comments from Black, lots of white men, and listen, honestly only 1 Asian man I can think of. LOL. It comes down to population numbers lol.

Now all that racial stuff being said, this site and healing is about me-me-me, not about race. I'm learning that there is a different between Blackness and me. I don't have to wrap all my life experiences into a race thing, but into a me thing. I don't have to keep carrying the entire burden of race because then I certainly could never move forward. 

I'm a person, lol, I really am. 
 
✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

We were in our mid-20's when we met and got married. We are now both pushing 50. Well he will be happy for me to say that I am pushing closer to 50 than he is lol.

We basically grew up together. And now that I've got some healing and halos to go along with that growing, let me say:

Dear Husband,
I fully accept your compliment
I receive it
I agree

And I don't agree just because I'm your wife
I agree because, well like you said, I am beautiful!