06/10/2025
Unpretty, Unbothered, and Still Showing Up”
Hey y’all,
So let’s just start with the truth: navigating this world as a Black woman who doesn’t fit society’s tight little box of “conventional beauty” is… well, let’s just say it’s an extreme sport. No medals. Just microaggressions and unsolicited advice about contouring.
People like to talk a lot about confidence — but they don’t tell you how hard it is to build it when the world acts like your face, your body, your skin tone, and your edges are some kind of “before” picture waiting to be fixed.
Let’s be real — growing up, I didn’t see girls like me being called beautiful unless it was followed by “…for a dark-skinned girl,” or “you got a nice smile though.” Gee, thanks… I’ll just take my ‘nice smile’ and go sit in the corner of invisibility, I guess.
And don’t get me started on dating. You ever scroll through a dating app and feel like the algorithm just quietly said, “Yeah… good luck with that”? Like, you swipe right and the app itself is like “…are you sure?”
But the thing is — beauty is the smallest part of who we are, and somehow it gets treated like the whole resume. Like, I didn’t survive all this life just to be reduced to whether or not I fit somebody’s idea of “cute.” I’m brilliant. I’m layered. I can cook, cry at random commercials, hold down a full-time job, and read people for filth — all before breakfast. That’s talent!
What I’ve learned is this: if you wait for the world to call you beautiful before you believe it, you might be waiting forever. And honestly, who has the time?
So I stopped asking for permission to feel good about myself. I stopped trying to squish my full self into some tiny mold made by people who don’t even know what seasoning is.
Because real talk? Conventional beauty is a moving target. You spend all your energy trying to chase it, and by the time you catch up, they’ve already changed the rules again.
But showing up as yourself — fully, loudly, and without apology? That never goes out of style.
To every other woman out there who’s been made to feel “too much” or “not enough” — I see you. You’re not ugly. You’re not broken. You’re just too real for a world still learning how to handle us.
So yeah, I may not be the girl they put on the cover of a magazine. But you better believe I’m still the main character.
And if anyone’s confused about it? That sounds like a them problem.
Thank you, and shout out to all my beautiful, “unpretty” queens still showing up and showing out.
⸻
