Both/And
Being half-Indian and half-Jamaican is an interesting space to live in.
It can feel like being caught between time zones or straddling a border.
As much as I've always just felt like... me, I've learned that humans prefer clean, tiny boxes. They like "either/or", "yes/no", or in my case Black or Brown. A younger me struggled with feeling "other", with low self-worth, with seeking validation from those who exoticized me, and with putting so much critical pressure on myself. Instead of being beautifully both, I spent a lot of time trying to be neither, to ignore; I sought to blend in with the majority.
My forever evolving self-love story, like yours, has had its ups and downs, its moments of reckoning, its bumps and hurdles. A defining chapter in that story has been about learning to fully love and embrace my identities, my "both". To find ease and joy in myself.
We have to teach ourselves to be comfortable with the space between, with the "both", in ourselves and others because the funny thing is, our world is filled with far more of this than clean, tiny boxes.
To this day, apart from my siblings, I've never known another half-Indian half-Jamaican. Except of course, for the Vice-President of the United States. Representation is so incredibly healing. It whispers soothing words to the wounded parts of us that want to be seen, heard, and accepted.
I'm posting this picture of a young me today, because I love and see all the parts that make her who she is, and I'm grateful that my siblings, my Inner Child and present-day me get to see our own "space between" represented in such a powerful way.
Baby Julia circa 1992