Becoming Both: Fear of Losing Myself Finding the Rest

Sometimes the only way forward is through the unraveling.When I was a little girl, I thought identity was a declared truth, a neat little box you checked once and carried forever. I chose my mother’s.She was everything I wanted to be: an embodiment of resilience. A Russian Jewish immigrant who could, and did, make something out of nothing. I hoped with every fiber of my being to mirror her courage in any way possible.Around my fourth birthday, I ran to the park, magic wand in hand, ready to play princess. Another little girl quickly ruined that dream when she told me I didn’t fit the role because my skin was too dark. And I believed her.All I knew were heroines like Belle and Cinderella, pale and golden. That night, my mom sat me down and played Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella with Brandy and Whitney Houston. She called it “curly-hair Cinderella.” We watched it hundreds of times. That version taught me something the first one didn’t, that girls like me deserved a crown too.Growing up, my mom made sure I was connected to my Eritrean roots. She took my sister and me to gatherings where the air smelled like berbere and...