Looking at myself in the mirror used to be a challenge. I couldn’t see me because I saw what everyone else thought.

Kids teased my fair skin, wavy hair, and gray eyes. They called me confused. Some said I was a white girl trying to be Black, while others said the opposite.

Too light to be Black.

Too dark to be white.

My mother’s Black, my father’s Caucasian. I am both, yet I believed what people said about me.

It took years to see my skin as beautiful. To see me as beautiful.

Just the way I am.