I recently came across my maternal grandmother’s bible.

As I flipped through the pages, I found a myriad of inserted items. Expired lottery tickets, her last Christmas gift list, and a few family pictures.

One picture, in particular, caught my eye. A picture of me, a faded one of my younger, teen self.

13-year-old me

As I stared at the picture, I felt myself fighting to hold back tears. In the end, the tears won.

When I was about 11- years old, one day while playing stickball in the streets of my Brooklyn neighborhood, I tripped and fell on a manhole cover.

After being stunned initially, the competitor in me jumped up, completed the play and celebrated the win with my teammates.

However, it wasn’t until that evening when I went to brush my teeth that I noticed that I had chipped my front right tooth.

I was devastated and embarrassed. I wondered why none of my friends had told me about my chipped tooth when it happened.

I was afraid initially to tell my Mom because I feared she would accuse me of being negligent. Because finances were always an issue growing up, I also feared, no, I knew my parents didn’t have the money to have my tooth repaired.

Approximately a day passed before I decided to tell my Mom what happened and to ask if I could go to the dentist. Her response was as I had expected. “We don’t have that kind of money,” a phrase that I heard often growing up.  I could tell that she felt bad about not having a different answer, but nevertheless, the answer remained the same. Therefore, my chipped tooth would be my badge of honor, one that I carried with me until I was in college and saved money from a part-time job to pay for the dental work to be completed.

In the meantime, I limited my smile time. When I would laugh, I found myself covering my mouth so as not to reveal the defect. I avoided cameras as often as I could so that I didn’t have to explain to the photographer why I wasn’t smiling.

In comparison to all the other more important issues that existed in my inner-city family life at the time, a chipped tooth was considered a minor inconvenience. Or so that is how I was made to feel.

When I was 12-years old, my shoulder length hair began to fall out. Largely due to stress, (my parents separated during this time) and my Mom decided I was old enough to begin caring for my own hair. Big mistake! You name the possible experimenting a young girl could do with her hair, I did it, and I suffered the consequences. With the exception of what I viewed as cute boobs, I felt I had the body of a boy. Skinny as a rail and no sign whatsoever of a butt.

To add insult to injury, I had the audacity in the years to come to choose to play the violin, when many of my friends sang in the chorus instead. I studied Hebrew, when others were studying Spanish or French. I indeed felt more and more “different” from most of my peers and my oral cosmetic defect simply made things worse.

I often found myself “dumbing down” in many things just to fit in.

On the outside, I was viewed as being confident and assured, yet inside my self-esteem was diminished by a strong sense of “less than” feelings. Not good enough and therefore certainly not worthy of revealing smiles of happiness.

It wasn’t until I was about 19-years old (post dental work), college success, first time traveling abroad, that I one day looked in the mirror and not only embraced the beauty of my smooth cocoa skin, but also finally began to smile regularly again. I actually loved everything about the young woman that I had grown up to be.

The confidence, the self-esteem that was previously lukewarm internally, began to surface and this delayed transformation warmed my heart. It changed my entire outlook on life.

From that day forward, I made a promise to myself that I would never engage in the following ten (10) behaviors:

1. I would never dull my shine, to make others feel at ease.
2. I would never be intimidated by someone else’s insecurities.
3 I would never fail to celebrate my wins, especially those that I worked exceedingly hard for.
4. I would never apologize for being a dope chick! I am not for everybody and everybody is not for me.
5. I would never stand by and allow anyone to look down their nose at me, yet I would never make anyone else feel as though I thought I was better than they were.
6. I would never allow anyone to minimize the beauty that I was blessed to inherit from my African ancestors.
7. I would never allow a man into my life who felt his purpose was to complete vs. compliment me.
8. I would never put limits on the red carpet possibilities for my life.
9. I would never allow anyone else’s opinions of me to define my worth.
10. I would always look for reasons to smile and even when I come up short, I would do it anyway.

I guess you could say I am making up for all the lost years during which I often minimized the importance of my existence. That won’t happen anymore. Not ever. God, nor I will allow it.

This month I had the opportunity to serve as a mentor in Orlando, Florida at a Dove Self-Esteem Workshop for teen girls. What an amazing opportunity to work with young girls, have them share some of their challenges and inspire them to persevere. Interestingly enough, many of the issues that these girls face today, mirror those that I faced growing up.

I decided to pen the words of this article for my teen self, as an apology for not being her #1 fan.

I pen them for the teen girls of today, as a form of encouragement and a reminder that they are worthy and that life on the other side of their struggles with self-worth can and will be amazing. #Believe

Lastly, I have developed my own workshop for girls ages 11-14 that I will be rolling out shortly. The objective of the workshop is to reinforce the importance of establishing S.M.A.R.T. goals, building self-esteem, confidence and making wise life decisions. Please email me directly jacquelinedujour@gmail.com if you have a daughter or know a girl who might benefit from participating in the program.

Our children are at risk, are you familiar with the latest data?

Have you shared this message with a young girl?

If you’re a Mom of a teen, what is her greatest challenge?