The goal of my essay was to analyze the way other people affect ones sense of identity and how an individual is affected by the opinion of a mass. I am proud of some of the descriptions in my essay and finally expressing how I felt about this process in detail. I had never explained to myself why I wanted locs it just happened and I went with it. I feel like this essay starts to explain other aspects of my personality that might change with time.

In Beasts of the southern wild, everyone in The Bathtub was happy with the life they had, they still lived in fear of those who were superior, they had nowhere to go but where they were. They knew that people would tell them where they lived was unsafe, or how they lived was disgusting but they were adapted to that lifestyle so outsiders would not understand. The way they lived worked for them, it was not meant or made to work for anybody else. Anyone coming into a community will not understand how that community works if they have already had exposure to another one, there is an immediate bias.

¨I´m apart of a big big universe and I make things right¨Hushpuppy says this all throughout the movie, she is saying her people created balance and variety and without that the community would fall apart because everything has an equal or opposite reaction. When they left, everything went out of control and everyone was forced to adjust in a way that did not necessarily work for them. Everyone had an opinion on what they should be doing but for everyone´s well being everything has to fit together just right so it does not matter if something is different it is necessary.

¨When you ask me am I really a woman, a human being,

a coherent identity, I’ll say No, I’m something else

like that though. ¨

A poem by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza speaks to people finding one aspect of a person then assuming their entire identity. Everyone is a combination of different traits, and a product of their environment. No black person has all the stereotypical traits, you can be black but be articulate or have no rhythm. It does not make you less black. In this poem the artist is separating herself from a group and becoming an individual. She is defining herself before going out into the world, if this happens then no one can tell you who you are or are not.

Sweatpants sitting on my thighs while my converse hugged my toes. My two aunts pick up pace behind me. The soles of my shoes shed rubber against tar, I reach the sidewalk and open the door. The wide salon greets me with aerosol clouds and clumps of hair sitting on the floor. Two brown skinned women with butterscotch locs smile and look to me. ¨Are you ready?¨ They each ask one after the other. They were beautiful no doubt, earthly goddesses but is their hair journey right for me? I forced a laugh and flashed a smile to my aunts, I had already asked for this as a birthday gift. The appointment was made, money ready to be spent, in about two hours there would be no turning back.

My feet found their way around and next thing I knew I was sitting i the waiting room. The salon was beautiful, the hair dressers were gorgeous, but only two had locs. Sza sings in the background as I constantly replay my mothers words,

¨You look awful, from now on you will either loc your hair or wear extensions¨

I never liked extensions or the feeling of artificial on natural. I loved my lions mane no matter how many times my grandmother unsuccessfully tried to tame it.

I don´t think I realized what was happening while it happened, I only went through motions.

I stand up. My feet led my legs somewhere. I sat down. Hands rushed through my hair, met with water. Everything stopped. I look up.

A lady with long brazilian bundles in a ponytail grasped my curls

¨So why do you wanna get locs?¨

My eyes started to dart around the salon, the bounced off the lights, away from her, onto the wall, over to the shampoos, I was seemingly searching for an answer to her question. It shouldn´t be that difficult I´m already here, my heart speeds up, I stutter,

do I actually want to be here? It doesn´t matter I already am I flush out fear and push words out.

¨Oh yeah, ummm my aunts have locs, and they look nice.¨ Honestly at that point I knew I sounded stupid, but that was the only other reason other than

my mother wanted me to. Brazilian bundles set out a soft breath with a smile, I guess it was imitating a laugh.

¨You have beautiful hair.¨ She wasn't the only person who had told me that. Less than 24 hours ago my older cousin pleaded with me not to get locs.

¨You´re so pretty why would you want locs?¨ I greeted but not welcomed her question with silence. Countless people had opinions about my hair, one boy had texted me ¨don´t get locs, it will mess up your curl pattern¨ as if he was an expert on hair types, he uses Cantu on his hair so his current curl pattern is already messed up, but moving on. I guess I would just get locs then end up loving them on me.

I followed Brazilian Bundles to a salon chair, as a woman a little taller than me slides into my peripheral vision. Her locs came to her clavicle, she had been growing them for some time. Her overall energy was welcoming, I felt more at ease starting my locs with someone who had them, but not all the way.

Sitting in her slippery salon chair, my feet dangled reminding me that it would be hard to escape this. So there was the artist, the stylist, with a tangled mess before her, my hair. Before she begun, I saw three different tools, loc styling gel, a fine rat tail comb, then scissors. My stomach tightened, turned rock solid no one has ever cut my hair before. Sure it was not super long because of how I brushed it and how my hair always shed, but scissors were never put to it. In a matter of seconds my hair went from shoulder length (with shrinkage) to earlobe length.

Why did you need to cut it? I steadily repeated in my head. I did not know what to do with short hair. My stylist, LaRhea took the rat tail comb, parted a section, then completed it by twisting the comb. She was careful but quick.

¨Please don´t revert this process¨ she said to me when she had finished. Meaning follow her instructions to maintain my hair until the next time we met. And I did. I saw her every month for the next year to retwist my locs until I found someone new.

¨Oh my gosh¨ squealed my aunt and my older cousin in unison as they walked into the salon to pick me up. ¨You look so cute¨

I smiled at the compliment longing for inches of my hair, not completely believing it.

For days I had wanted to untwist my starter locs, but day after day I became more accepting of them until my hair was fully locked.

In a TEDTALK Thandie Newton proposes this thought ¨We each have a self, but I don´t think we´re born with one.¨ The idea here is that we grow into ourselves as time goes on. When we are born, we each have a physical body but as we get older we start to make choices for our own concept of self, from those decisions comes a personality then that´s where you come in as a self. Everyone has some sense of who they are or want to be but no one ever has the concrete knowledge. People project certain energy and everyone is a product of their environment. Often we change to please others.

If we challenged the system more maybe it would not reject us as much, we would not be outcasts or forced to fit in a box. If we were to fight against the dominant culture all the time we would be exhausted so we should question who we are but choose in which ways we challenge the system/expectations when necessary.

Introduction:

My goal in this essay was to make the reader feel as connected to my family memories that took place in my house as I was. I realized it was mot possible because no one´s memories ever feel exactly the same. The spider analogy came to me when I would leave the house to go to school early in the morning. One  morning there was a big spider web that the sun hit perfectly and the sky had these beautiful soft rose gold tones the weather was neutral and for a moment I felt at peace, I tried to take a picture but when I looked on my phone it did not look the same, when I came back home the web was not there. I stood for a few seconds looking for the web wondering if spiders care when their web is gone or if at this point it is just routine for them. I´ve never been apart of the moving process, it has happened to people around me but never people I live with. Everything felt like it would never be the same.

What happens on an emotional level when a spiders web is ruined? When their homes are destroyed by visitors. Are they irritated that they have to start over or do they adapt well? We don´t take notice to their creations crafted built for them, never taking time to admire each silk strand catered overtime to their comfort. In actuality they just aren't us, so they don´t matter as much. Spiders, the ultimate nomads of the ecosystem, moving to various locations when time has proven the moment has come for them to continue on.

The only thing separating humans and spiders is the simple fact that they are individuals, not members of a pack or flock. They invested time into building their forts lacking sentimental value. Relocating is a necessity for survival, but I get attached too easily.

I had overheard them talking about it for a while but always thought it was talk.

¨Sanaa take these empty boxes to your room¨ my aunt called to me from the garage.

¨Coming!¨

I usually act before my mind is ready to process everything. My hands stacked souvenirs of my time here and piled them into boxes. When one box was full it was closed off and pushed to the side.  I sat on the bed in that room and looked around. Stared at the brown boxes against the white wall, without all my things, it was a blank canvas.

I had spent countless hours writing, eating, and laughing in this house, my safe place. I sat on the bottom step, to my left the living room and memories of the holiday shows my cousins and I would host when we were 5, but abandoned when everyone got ¨too cool¨ for talent.  To my right was the Kitchen and Dining room, I remember the thanksgiving I migrated to the adult table, it was only a few inches but it meant something. Half of what I knew about my family was uncovered in this house. My aunts competitive side during scrabble, countless stories of lives before my cousins and I came along. The stories would stay the same but the background they were told in would change.

The oldest tradition for my cousins rolled around with the holidays. Our staged performances as toddlers and adolescents can probably still be found with a few hundred camera roll scrolls, even though they faded away throughout the years as we all advanced into individuals, the shows were our bond. Our black history shows where I played Rosa Parks every year up till 2010, our easter shows where we once rapped about jesus but shed the idea of organized religion like dead skin in 2014 while still using it as a cloak to hide our real selves from our parents. Our Thanksgiving talents shows deceased after we all realized none of us would be the next American Idol, Gabby Douglas or Misty Copeland. Then our Christmas shows where I once played rudolph but lost interest in the ruby face paint and glowing antlers. The New years parties we threw reduced to a quick

¨happy new years <3¨

since we seemingly grew out of eachother.

All of these memories I dug up will feel gone when we relocate. My web is unraveling around me. ´Maybe they'll ask for a refund´ I always think begging my mind for reassurance. I pause reminding myself that´s an unrealistic scenario I created to keep myself here.

I´ve always been the type of person to hold onto memories, I've saved previous text messages from tainted friendships to read and look through on my emotional rainy days. Maybe I´m not holding on to the house as much as I am holding onto everything familiar. Everything is changing. My english teacher, my schedule. I'm a junior this year, next year i'll stress about colleges, then the year after that i´ll be gone.

Was I ready to leave? It didn't matter in a few days trucks would come to help us move on.