MY beauty is also SKIN deep....not just on the surface!!

Okay, I just need to get this off my chest.....going natural was one of the most freeing moments of my life. I don't know if anyone can understand that, but it was a release that I could feel in my soul. Maybe it had to do with the "I have always" had long hair snydrome or free from the fact that the men in our family related "true beauty" with long hair. If you didn't have long hair, you weren't as pretty.

When I went natural, my grandfather was so hurt, as well as my father. No matter how much I SAID I liked it, he just would shake his head and say "Well, I don't!!" After that, every time I have seen my grandfather, (I do love him to pieces) he would make a comment or something about my hair. "When are you going to do something to your head?" "When are you going to make yourself pretty for me again"....I remember looking at him and saying "Papa, I am still pretty"....And he looked me dead in my face and said "No, you aren't as pretty! You lost your beauty when you cut your hair off.

I am not going to pretend that it didn't sting to hear him say that. I just looked at him and said "Well, Papa...I am sorry you feel that way, but I love my hair like this and it will be a long time or if ever before I process my hair again. Naturally my grandmother would come to my defense, but he negative and hurtful words just kept ringing and ringing in my head. I thought "Wow, is he that closed minded that he can't see my inner beauty as well as my outer....because I don't have hair cascading down my back.....I am less beautiful to him?" I mean....this is my grandfather.......besides my father and my son.....the only other male that means everything to me.

Maybe it shouldn't bother me......but it does. I think so much emphasis is put on outer beauty, some people forget that inner beauty can OUT SHINE outer beauty in a heart beat!!! Now, I am not saying that I want to be a walking mud duck, but I try to take of both my inner and outer beauty together...not one above the other......

That's today's "State of Mind" for me.......