What Will They See?

This morning I was wondering.  In the not-too-distant future, what will my kids think when they look back on my digital footprints?

Will they think I was a geek?  Smart?  A snob?  Compassionate?  Superficial?  Crazy?

Obviously only so much of who I am can be shown through pictures and text, but of what is shown, what does it say?

I'm sure it will reveal somewhat where my priorities were at each step in time.

Already, looking back though my profile pictures in Facebookland, I can see that very drastic changes have happened in the past five years.  For instance, check out this picture.  And then read the title on it.

Yep.  You read it right.  It does, indeed, say "my bro and his girl."  As awkward as it is for me to vocalize now, at that point in time I thought I was so cool.  Let me explain why.

You see, for some time I've been a stickler for correct grammar.  I didn't realize it for sure until entering college after spending the past several years underlining the noun and/or pronouns, double-underlining verbs, crossing out prepositional phrases, circling adjectives, and drawing arrows from the adverb back to the verbs they were describing (thank you, homeschooling).

I'm so much in love with it that I actually thoroughly enjoy editing papers and creating a red-pen masterpiece over someone's draft.  It pains me to use abbreviations and the number "2" instead of typing out "two" in my blog, texts, Tweets, and Facebook status. My teeth automatically clench and inwardly I cringe when I see people abuse "their," "they're," and "there."

And yet, I labeled that picture, "my bro and his girl."

Ugh.  Can you say barf?

However, even to this day, I know what was going on in my head when I wrote that exact caption.  I was trying to fit the mold for what I thought an African American boyfriend would like.  It's embarrassing to say for some reason, but I'm just putting it out there, since it's probably not all that difficult for those of you who knew me during that time to figure out anyway.  I have no idea why, but I know it drove my parents crazy for a while.  They used to always say to me, "Do you know you're white?"

Yes.  I knew.  But I've just always been more attracted to boys with a beautiful, permanent tan.  And African American hair is so cool!  Regardless of my reasons, I was on the hunt to find me a sweet caramel hubby.  Thankfully, this was one of those instances where my priorities apparently aligned with God's, because Isaac's got one of the nicest tans I've ever seen.

A good example of my African American hair infatuation.  This was during my first week of freshman year at Iowa State.  I had wanted some microbraids, but wasn't about to pay $100 or so for someone else to do them so I Googled how to do them and then sat in the attic for 9 straight hours putting them in.  I'd do it again.

My friend, Natalie, jokes about my infatuation.  She refers to me as her, "gangster friend," or something like that, because when I met her... well, I thought I was a gangster.  Granted, I had NO idea what a real gangster was... it just sounded exciting.

Good gravy!  Writing this blog is a smidge embarrassing!!

But it's the truth!!!  I thought that I was some kind of bad-a$$ because I bought my Baby-Phat clothes out of a hustler's trunk, could braid some wicked cornrows, and understood ebonics while a lot of my fairer-skinned friends couldn't.

Oh my lord.  I can't believe I'm confessing to all of this.

But then again.  It's not like you couldn't tell what was running through my head.  I mean, seriously?  At the time I thought nobody could tell...  but who was I kidding?

Glory almighty.

I'll have to save my adventures for some other time, because right now I'm already blushing and shaking my head, remembering all of this.  I just can't even get over it.

Someday my kids are going to look at me and say, "Mom, what the heck were you thinking??"

I'll just going to have to tell them, "I don't know sweetie.  I don't know..."

It'll be interesting.  That's for sure.