By Kristol Boston

“Oh my gosh, baby, I am so proud of you. This is such a beautiful house. Now all you need to do is fix your hair and lose a little bit a weight”. These were the words my mother spoke when she toured the house I had just purchased. They were familiar, said in the sweet sing-song tone that she saved for all of her passive-aggressive compliments. Comments about my weight were nothing new. I’ve always been on the chubby side, I don’t think my scale has seen the underside of 200lbs since high school. But, since deciding to fully go natural about 8 years ago, my hair gets included now too, you know, for spice.

I started gaining weight in middle school. Everyone in my immediate family except for my mother is what you would refer to as “thick”. When I jumped straight from training bras to a C-cup she knew it would be a problem. I was always active, I was a dancer up until junior year of high school. I think the weight didn’t bother her as much then because she felt like it was natural. I wasn’t unhealthy because I could run and jump and chasse with the best of them. When I stopped dancing, I was fat, even though I didn’t weigh any more than before. And being fat was unacceptable as it reflected poorly on her. Her motherhood was deeply entrenched in how she and her children looked. She was short, but slim, high cheekbones, the perfect shade of brown and the best collection of wigs money could buy (for a while anyway). Her looks were her pride, not only of herself, but of her native country, Trinidad and Tobago where the ideal was always to be able to fit into the tiniest of carnival costumes. Having a fat daughter sullied this image and she never missed an opportunity to remind me that I was a disappointment.

It didn’t help that there were other perfect children to compare me to. My older brother, the apple of her eye, an athlete. My older sister, the standard by which I was measured, was thick. But thick in the way men like. Thick with a flat stomach and wide hips and high ass. Green eyes, pale skin inherited from my father’s Carib Indian and Venezuelan background. She was my mother’s aesthetic goals. I tried my best to stand out from them in different ways. I was a straight A student. I was, and still am, hilarious. I can engage with anyone, about anything. But that never mattered. I remember overhearing my aunt telling my mom “You know, this one is your good child, and she’s prettier than her sister”. “Yes, but she fat”. My fatness would always be bigger than my greatness.

Yes, but she fat. That one line followed me everywhere I went. Harmed me in ways I haven’t fully come to understand yet. Led me to relationships where I accepted less than I deserved because at the end of the day if he was fine and I was fat then I should just take what I could get. I ended up dating two of the most beautiful men I had ever seen. Dudes who were objectively fine. And when things started to go downhill in those relationships, I remembered that I was fat. 

I decided to go natural. Not really out of some big political statement or to embrace myself fully. It was more of an experiment. My hair was already in a pixie cut and keeping it looking good because of how fast the shaved parts would grow out was time consuming and expensive. So I just stopped going to the salon. At first natural hair made me feel uglier and fatter. You could see all of my face now. I turned to wigs and weaves. Not to protect my hair, but to protect me from myself. I didn’t want to see my fat face without bundles of Brazilian wavy. About a year or so into my transition, I just cut the bundles out of my budget. I had to confront myself and my hair just as it grows out of my head. In this time frame my mom has also grown dreads, decided she didn’t like them anymore and cut them off. My parents also retired and moved back to Trinidad. The first video call I had with my parents was anxiety inducing. I slicked my edges and pulled my hair into a curly high puff. As soon as the screen opened my dad said “Hello Baby!” and my mom said “What's going on with your head? Yuh not going to do SOMETHING with it?” I don’t know why I expected something different. Maybe a part of me hoped that in her journey for her locks she could see why someone would want to go natural. But to her, locks were different. She kept her locks very neat and always styled. She never let them grow out too far without having them retwisted. That natural was a good natural. Just having a puff was a bad natural. So now, not only was I fat, but I was fat with bad hair. The digs continued. Each milestone: having a baby, getting engaged, getting married met with both praise and subtle disgust. 

I wish I could end and say that we’re good now. She’s apologized and we’ve moved on. But I just bought my house last year, so that’s not how the story goes. The only thing that has changed is me. I have started therapy to unpack the ways in which I continue to carry the feeling of being a disappointment. I have come to fully accept my naturalness and my fatness as just a thing that is. My therapist also helped me to see that part of why I continued to gain weight was a sort of silent rebellion. Me insisting on my own autonomy. That I don’t have to be what she wants me to be and since it was her worst nightmare for me to be fat, then I would be fat and more.

 I have started a more concerted effort to be healthy. Not necessarily to lose a bunch of weight, but just to be more concerned for my overall health because I have a husband and son that need me. I do hope to one day have the conversation with her about how she made me feel and the damage that’s been done, but I’m not there yet. Maybe one day, but for today just loving me is going to have to be good enough.

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