Paradoxes of Being a Woman

I want to begin by saying that one of the paradoxes of being a woman is being a woman that people automatically assume fits into more than one box. It’s being a woman who before the age of sixteen has already grasped the understanding of all of the less complicated boxes she doesn't fit into before she understands who she is. My skin is the first thing that appears to draw people in. Getting them to come observe closer, beckoning them beyond the lines of the simplest & the unspoken boundaries. My hair doesn’t help. If my skin doesn’t leave them confused enough, my hair will do the trick. Its texture can be lethal. Pulling people into act without a single thought, touching it, getting fingers lost in the curls or the tamed straightened hair I made sure to lay down before I left home. My skin, my hair & my eyes combined are the ‘red rum’ of all good days. You see, to the naked eye, my appearance appears to be the best of both worlds. I’m not talking about the conversation starters. ‘Who’s the black parent? Mom or Dad?’ I’m talking about people seeing my mother once & jumping the gun. I’m talking about strangers. People who can’t even pronounce my name correctly. People who are 100% outside of my family unknowingly or even self-consciously tell me that they know more about me, about my family & its entire history just by looking at me, by acknowledging my skin tone as neither day nor night, good nor bad according to ancestral times that they must have found the puzzle piece of who I am & now hold it in their hands offering it to as if to me being a morsel. I’m talking about being assumed that I am not black at all. That I’m Hispanic, someone so far removed from the motherland that I’ve found myself here. I’m talking about having a woman (cause no man has yet dared to tread these waters)assuming that I am Latina, that I must be fluent in Spanish, that I must understand the motherland’s tongue. I’m talking about getting offended as I am afraid to allow myself to get when I have to reply “No habla mucho español” almost as if I had taken everything they've ever known, smashed it into a bullet loaded it into a gun & used it as a weapon against them. I'm talking about the sideway glance when I enter a store. As if they're not sure whether or not to trust me - trust me too but what I'm set out to buy & do so with the exact change or Apple Pay or whether or not what I've come in for will fit into my wallet-sized purse or the pockets that won't even hold my phone. I'm talking about the side eyes that could shoot daggers into you when I tried to sit down with a table of peers; of being rejected by both sides altogether or only took me in almost in the hope that they'll rub off on me & I'll change before very eyes like a mood rings telling them just who & what I am even though mirrors could never do so. I'm talking about the question like a multiple choice questionnaire as if there is a correct response as if I'll somehow fail it if I get it wrong. I'm talking about being told in a joking manner that I am whitewashed or sound uneducated. I like to end by saying you're one of the paradoxes of living, is living as a woman who understands these concepts all too well. Wondering who they are in searching for role models who somehow second-handedly compensate. I'm talking about living, keeping strong, and building a strong foundation if you are & who you are not to become.