10 Things I Learned As A Short-haired Girl

I have really curly hair (3b on the curl chart), but for my entire adolescent life, I did everything I could to mask it. I never went outside unless my hair was perfectly straightened or waved, and my poor hair was so co-operative that nobody would believe it when I told them my hair is actually very very curly. I recently got it cut, it's now 12-16 inches shorter in different places, and the plan is to almost never heat treat it; i.e. to go natural.

 Here is some of my newly acquired wisdom regarding hair length (and texture!) on girls...and why it's nobody's business but theirs. 

               

1. My hair before the cut was really really long. Longer than I thought it was due to damage and split ends.

2. All guys love long hair on girls.

3. Most girls wish they could chop all their hair off. They don't because of the former reason.

4. People stare at curly hair as if it were an anomaly, which truly is paradoxical since I live in an African, Middle Eastern country. Tells you a lot about beauty standards.

5. I really really like it. More than I thought I would.

6. Change is really easy for me to adapt to; I feel like I've had my hair this short since forever.

7. People who are really close to you won't filter out their opinions of your appearance. Which means getting a lot of "you're insane" and "you look 40."

8. I spend much less time worrying about how I look, whether I have stray locks or frizz. I know I do, I just don't really care about it anymore.

9. "Going natural" made me realize I can feel beautiful with no maintainance whatseoever. But it also made me appreciate how much effort women put into their looks. It's no easy task for a girl, you know.

10. Personal choices are easy to make if you don't think much about what people would say. If I had thought of every time people would look at my short hair with pity, I probably would have had second thoughts about it.

People still drop sour comments about it and some of them kind of sting, but at the end of the day, I look myself in the mirror feeling beautiful and feeling like myself. I wouldn't trade that for all the "good hair days" in the world if they don't give me that. smile emoticon

Accessible

The feeling of loneliness, we've all experienced it at some point, and I can say dreaded it for the most part. It's the feeling that creeps up on you after you've been around so many people, laughing and being merry, but after a while the company starts to fade out of sight and you're just left with it. It's that feeling of helplessness associated with need; the need for attention and acceptance, and maybe some consolation in the form of a warm hug or a pat on the back. We all crave it and we all can't do without it.

So how to fulfill the need without sounding demanding or "needy"? You become accessible.
We as humans have this hypothesis engraved in our minds that when we offer something, we're more likely to have it reciprocated. It's true for the majority to see life as a series of trading transactions, we do something for something else in return. Be that thing a material payment, an appreciative gesture, or for the more self-righteous of us, the mere sense of satisfaction for having done good. It explains why we go through a lot of crap without a short-term profit; I mean, how many times were you convinced as a child to do something because it'll get you into heaven?
But that's not our point. The point here is we offer so much because we expect so much in return. So, for example, one offers 3-4 hours daily for socializing/checking up on friends because they somehow hope to find a friend checking up on them when they feel lonely...simple as that.

Of course with social media this has become a million times easier and more convenient. You now can interact with ten times the number of people you could interact with say 20 years ago, and reach an audience of numbers you could have only wished to reach as a dreamy, wide-eyed little kid. It's become so simple to show little bits and pieces of your personality to your acquaintances and friends so as to make yourself look as charming and inviting as possible. It all works out perfectly to ward off that lousy loneliness, right?

Wrong. Sometimes the idea of acceptance sounds amazing when uttered as a general notion, like how we all should embrace each other's differences and celebrate each other's presence. However, it can cause one to think of themselves in terms of their ambiguous traits, the silhouette of their personality rather than its core, or even worse for more self-conscious people, to feel like they're deceiving their grand audience into thinking they're something better and more appealing than their true selves, which is a very guilt-inducing, self-destructive thought. It could lead these people to making all kinds of stupid decisions to disrupt the image taken of them and disprove any theories of their wholeness.

Real loneliness needs real connection to chase it away. It needs open lines of communication and a willingness to share the innermost fears and desires with someone who understands and appreciates. It needs care that extends beyond lines of texts or minutes of phone calls with contrived emotions and cold, yellow images of pseudo-facial expressions. It needs intimacy, emotional and physical.

Friends or allies?

So I've seen this pic on my news feed several times now and I have a little rebuttal for the argument presented and the very "matter-of-factly" way it's presented in.

Friendship is a voluntary relationship. No one forces anyone to have friends or hang out with completely unrelated people to him just to make this person's day worse...just for the hell of it. We choose our friends, and suppose we do it in a healthy manner, we choose them based on common interests and fields of enjoyment. We choose them to make our days pass by a little better and to share with them our crazy antics and passions. We have so much to talk to them about, and what we talk about is completely unnecessarily related to our separate social lives. We talk sports, music, literature, long walks, health, philosophy...etc. with the occasional banter about current events and/or work and life troubles.

Friendship is optional. You don't have to call a person a friend if you two don't have anything in common. You can resort to acquaintance/colleague to rightfully label a person you don't choose to accompany willingfully. It's totally okay to have this as a circle in your life as a mature adult. You no longer play with the kids in the play ground and call them all your besties the next moment. There are boundaries and correct labels to be used.

However, and this is my main conflict with the picture, you can't really complain about a friend wanting to contact you daily, nor is it possible that you call someone a "friend" and be bothered by their wanting to chat up for a few minutes every other day. Of course we all have the "leave me alone" days in which we feel rather inclined to being solitary, but wanting to be alone and away from people you call your friends is quite an unhealthy sign if you ask me.

Second point in the picture is "if you need me I'll be there," well, it goes in line with the old saying we always hear: "A friend in need is a friend indeed." I want to say that's just not what friendship is for.
Friendship is a mutually enriching experience, it's not "I'm here for you today so you should be there for me tomorrow." It's not a who-repays-whom game. It's not a collection of tough moments in which you had a friend help you or you helped a friend. In fact, people who view friendships this way might suffer such lousy time with their "friends" when nothing crucial (whether good or bad) is happening. A sad sight indeed.
I'll leave the always articulate C. S. Lewis explain this better from his book "The Four Loves." 

" Others again would say that Friendship is extremely useful, perhaps necessary for survival, to the individual. They could produce plenty of authority: "bare is back without brother behind it" and "there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother". But when we speak thus we are using friend to mean "ally". In ordinary usage friend means, or should mean, more than that. A Friend will, to be sure, prove himself to be also an ally when alliance becomes necessary; will lend or give when we are in need, nurse us in sickness, stand up for us among our enemies, do what he can for our widows and orphans. But such good offices are not the stuff of Friendship. The occasions for them are almost interruptions. They are in one way relevant to it, in another not. Relevant, because you would be a false friend if you would not do them when the need arose; irrelevant, because the role of benefactor always remains accidental, even a little alien, to that of Friend. It is almost embarrassing. For Friendship is utterly free from Affection's need to be needed. We are sorry that any gift or loan or night-watching should have been necessary - and now, for heaven's sake, let us forget all about it and go back to the things we really want to do or talk of together. Even gratitude is no enrichment to this love. The stereotyped "Don't mention it" here expresses what we really feel. The mark of perfect Friendship is not that help will be given when the pinch comes (of course it will) but that, having been given, it makes no difference at all. It was a distraction, an anomaly. It was a horrible waste of the time, always too short, that we had together. Perhaps we had only a couple of hours in which to talk and, God bless us, twenty minutes of it has had to be devoted to affairs."

- C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

L

Rantings with tears in my eyes

Why do we do this? why do we pick out differences and search for things that cause us to fight and argue and have battles and kill each other?
Why does the whole human race indulge in violence, oppression, murder, destruction of everything pure and beautiful?
Did God intend for things to be this way?
Did he command people to kill whoever doesn't agree with them?
Did he want to see all the bloodshed and the struggle to spread dominion over worthless pieces of land, or assertion of nationalities or religions?
Did he want everyone to be the same?
So why don't genocides work?
Why don't we all look the same, think the same, act the same?
Is there something wrong with being different from your friends, your coworkers, the person you love?
Is there some kind of curse of eternal damnation that befalls whoever thinks of ignoring differences and focusing on the commonalities?
Does God want that?
Then what does He want?

All The Same

         "So if we're casting stones
          If we've forgotten what we know
          That we don't walk alone in this life
          Let your love get inside our bones
          May it deep within us grow
          May we bring in the ones left outside"

 These lines are from a song that's become dear to my heart lately, it's called All The Same by tenth avenue north (you can listen to it below the lyrics).
 What does this have to do with this post?
 I've been visited by this thought so much lately, that we spend so much time condemning others who have different beliefs or act according to a different code of manners that we forget to hold ourselves accountable for anything we do. We always seem to search for where the other person's wrong and magnify their faults so big that we think our own faults don't show. We refuse to give grace. We choose to judge according to differences and never try to "walk a mile in their shoes."

We're all humans, all the same. Every single one of us is struggling with something, no matter how big or small. We think that being secretive about our flaws and past mistakes, while casting stones on others' flaws and mistakes, will somehow work.

But you know, this is contradictory to basic logic.
Am I supposed to expect others to forgive me if I don't forgive them? Am I better? More favored in God's eyes for a special thing in me? Was I born with extra credit for having a special set of genes that give me superiority over another person?
Am I better than that person who chose to insult me and talk about my religion in a demeaning way just because it's different from his?

No.
Actually, I might be worse!

The moment a person starts believing he would "never ever ever!" do something, the same person walks into a danger zone of alleged infallibility. I'm not beyond judging a person because he's different from me. In fact, I've done it over and over before. On my own I'm fragile and prone to fall into so many pits and holes; it's God's grace and mercy that keeps me from being a thing I might hate.

So, I'm not offended by what that person said*. I believe he thought there was a very good reason behind that comment he made about my religion.
I forgive, because I want to be forgiven.


*Translation of that comment he made into English:
Do you really believe that strange religion of yours (Christianity)?! It is wrong and unconvincing! I wonder how some minds believe these myths and absurdity you call your religion!
I advise you against being a follower for what you found yourself born into. Use your brain to reach what's right.

The Gold-coated rule?!

My Facebook news feed is the worst place to be right now. Seriously, yours might be just as bad and you don't know it!
You see, all I see is lots of people my age and younger complaining about how terrible people are, how they're done with trying to find friends, and how having active relationships with other people is just not worth it anymore.
It got me thinking; why the hell would someone so young lose hope in dealing with people, while they practically lived only a quarter of their normal life expectancy period?!
Are people really this terrible to each other?
Have we become so frightened that we'd get under-appreciated and maltreated by people that we started to treat them this horribly?
What would happen if we started living a simpler life, one void of all the over-thinking, psychoanalyzing and misinterpretations?
What would happen if we just followed the Golden Rule? Is it really hard to treat people the way we want to be treated?!

But it's not like that, right?!
Well, the Golden Rule is -philosophically- a nice way to live by. You do unto people as you would have them do unto you, and you expect things to work in your favor just because you did the right thing. Right?
Na-uh!
Unless you're the 12-year-old part of the chart, you already know people can be monstrous creatures whose only viability comes from preying on other people. It might be an over-statement, but I've seen people enjoying others' failings, applauding their mistakes, or waiting to see the next wrong thing they'll do just to feel better about themselves.
Horrible, isn't it?
But come on, you'd be lying to your own face if you think you hadn't been this horrible of a person to someone before. Even if you haven't hurt anyone with a word or a look of dismay, I'm pretty sure that somewhere along the path of your life you judged someone, or felt superior to them because of a failing they had.
I can't say I never did this, because I did. And now I know why I shouldn't have.
I'd like people to be nice to me, actually, I'd love it if everyone liked me. I already know it's an impossibility, but wouldn't it be nice to know that there's no one out there hating your guts and loathing the very fact that you're breathing? I'd love if that were true!
However, and I'm sorrowfully speaking here, I know I'm not like that to everyone. I'm called not to accept, tolerate or co-exist with others who are different from me...I'm called to LOVE them!
Now I know it's a tough commandment to follow, and I feel like acting it's not there most of the time. But frankly, I know my life would be much easier if I did.
Carrying the burden of other people's faults is actually very consuming if not destructive. You either lose hope in finding "the right people" to be around, or feel much better about yourself because you sin differently from them. Both ways won't lead you to be at peace with yourself and others, or reach heaven eventually.
So, I say don't live by the "Gold-coated Rule", that is, convincing yourself everything is fine and that you're treating people "nice enough" and it's the way you want to be treated. You'll come back complaining later because you never want to feel "accepted in spite of" you want to feel "loved because". If you have a problem with someone, face yourself with it and forgive them from the bottom of your heart. Love them wholeheartedly because of the many great things they are. And know that God loves you in spite of your failings, He can expose to everyone how messed up you are, but He covers you up. You -in turn, the mere human- don't really own the right to judge your brother.
You know, you shouldn't expect to find favor in people's eyes if you don't offer them grace first.

I'm back

I've been away from the blog for almost two months now. These two months have shaped a good chunk of my future life. I became much more distant from myself in the process. I stopped paying attention to my actions and started to to be a little more "spontaneous", but this kind of spontaneity is not meant for my type of personality.
This blog was kind of an outlet for my feelings and thoughts. Although I thought I could easily substitute the time I gave myself to contemplate and analyze the situations I go through, with casual conversations with people who are close to me...turns out it's impossible. I'm not against opening up to my close friends, I just started to appreciate my "alone time" more now that I don't get enough of it.
I'll try to make my blog posts a regular activity, they allow me a wider space to focus and think about things I'm going through in my life, one thing at a time. Also, I've missed how good it felt to just pour my thoughts into words and formulate them into ideas and then actions. Guess I do lose part of my originality every time I don't give myself the chance to re-center and process the people and situations I go through!
I'll turn 19 next week, and I'll celebrate by reading the blog posts I've written throughout the past year to see how much I've changed. I used to think change was a bad thing, then a good thing, now I know it's just natural.
I'll see if I could give the blog a bit of a revamp, too...celebrating change :)

Judgement

Yeah, yeah, yeah...you've heard it all and read it all about how unfair the world is when it comes to judging others, how wronged you feel you have been by people around you who just don't understand. I for one have always felt the prey when it comes to the judgement game, while in fact I was judging others when I didn't have the right to. I felt superior to the people I didn't give grace to, like I would NEVER do what I judged them on terms of, as if I was the only infallible human being there has ever existed. It kind of substituted for the lack of righteousness I suffer from, so when I picked others' faults and failings I would automatically feel better than them. I shouldn't have done that. I should have given excuses to the people who needed them instead of picking out what's wrong with them. But I know now how wrong I was to block grace out of my everyday encounters with people, that I should look to God asking for forgiveness only after I have forgiven those who wronged me...it takes tons of effort, but I'm praying for strength and perseverance to do that.

They Told Me to: "Have A Life"

Okay, this is my very first "request post" on this blog. I have an Ask.fm account on which I receive questions about everything related to my very interesting life *sarcasm font*. It's a way to spend (or kill) time in my very interesting summer vacation. I received this question about my blog, which denotes the existence of an anonymous fan to this blog. Although I have about 3000 views already, I do not hear from anyone reading it except for some personal friends who offer their valuable feedback. So, I was very excited, to be honest. That "fan" did request I write about "Having a life". Here's how they requested it:

Ok then,there's some words that keeps echoing in my mind..."Have a life".you know,when someone spend his whole day on the internet chatting with his friends & playing facebook games he has to "have a life".I need you to write an article about this subject.how can someone have a life in your opinion?

 So, I will talk to you personally about the subject, pal. People think that having a life is to not spend your whole day on the interwebz? It sounds logical that spending time staring at a screen won't do you any good. I'll have to disagree there. Although our culture emphasizes the importance of having face to face communication and relationships with people, there are many many people who can not function properly in this system.
 You have shy people who are not willing to be the first to break the ice in a conversation. They normally fumble and hesitate to talk to people they've just met. Their only solution is to get to know these people first by having nice conversations on social media websites and trying to practice what will engage them better in a chat.
 Then you have gaming nerds, and nerd here is by no means an insult. These people love to spend their time living in a CGI world of their own. That's what they like to spend their time doing, so why rob them of this pleasure. Aren't they allowed to enjoy a fun game that does not require a physique they don't have? Or should they try and play on the field and get hurt, bruised and smashed by the "big kids".
 Our next category is by far my favorite, "The Coders". These people are the epitome of the human brain. I personally wish I were gifted with the ability to understand, yet memorize complex codes and protocols. These people are the "lifeless nerds" who allow you to own the latest and the greatest of technological contraptions. They spend countless hours staring at screens to develop and improve the quality of consumer electronics you take for granted. Aren't they missing out? Not a bit! You should see how Mark Zuckerberg is missing out with all the multi millions he has.
 I will speak of experience on the next one. I've been a literary geek since I was about 12. My favorite thing was to sit and read a book. And since I was an avid English literature reader, libraries and bookstores didn't help me much. What would I do, then? I'd search for free e-books and read them, read articles and blogs online...etc. This means that without my precious computer, I wouldn't have been able to keep this blog or write at all. So, if I were to choose whether to have "a life" or a computer...you know what I'd pick.

So, there ya go, pal! I'm sorry if this blog post doesn't go with what you think. After all, I keep this blog to express my humble opinions and rant about my personal issues.

Perfection Interrupted: Perfection vs. Individuality

I thought about writing this while having a conversation with my English teacher. I'm mere days away from starting my high school finals, which will eventually determine the university I'll go to. My teacher said that my dilemma of losing marks and half-marks, which eventually lead to a series of A-'s and B's is mainly because of creativity. Now, I'm not creative as in writing down stuff that does not have anything to do with what I'm being taught, nor was he saying this as a way of reprimanding me. I just figured that I try -sometimes subconsciously- to make it obvious I did something. I have to leave a mark on whatever I'm doing. I am individualistic.
This is a challenge in the "one size fits all" system of life I live in, especially when trying so hard to be "perfect."
Being perfect doesn't always mean being the best, but "perfect" does imply that to people sometimes. I struggle to meet the expectations of people around me when I'm not so sure what they expect from me. This is why I long for perfection. Because we all know that the superlative of anything is the clearest form of said thing. I try to be the superlative, and when I fall short, I feel like a failure.
Back to individuality, aka uniqueness or just being different. I don't like being like someone else, none of us does actually. Even the most conventional thinkers try to have a signature way of showing it. God created us in a way that it's impossible for two people to be alike, regardless of how similar they are, they cannot be identical by nature. We, on the other hand, set up standards and molds and labels to put on people so that their uniqueness doesn't bother us. And some submit to the box they've been given to live inside. Personally, I have been trying so hard to fit in the very narrow box of "perfect" for most of my life. I have only recently realized that I'll have no personality of my own if I kept trying to squeeze every last bit of my creativity and individuality into that box.
See, the pattern from the beginning of time till say the 1970s had been to just conform to the standards and be like everybody else. Be different and brace yourself for being called a witch, a clown, a traitor, an idiot, stupid, pointless or helpless. Refer to history for confirmation.
Artists, thinkers, poets and musicians have been outcasts for affirming individuality. Even now, in the age of "freedom of expression" where everyone with a good camera phone is a photographer, and every idiot with a blog is a writer, and every guy with a guitar is a musician, real artists are still outcasts, because their voice is not auto-tuned, because their articles have spelling mistakes, because their paintings are not easy to understand, because their art is not "perfect."
Alas, we ruined both perfection and individuality.
I don't even know whether it is possible for longing for perfection and individuality to reconcile anyway.
Oh, well.

Never Too Young

Maturity has an age. Knowing God has an age. Spontaneity has an age. Oblivion has an age. Screwing up has an age. Wisdom has an age. Believing has an age.

So everything is age restricted. We have set up a system where by a definite age you should have certain characters or behave in a certain manner, or even look a certain way.
Never color outside those lines, or else you'd be socially unacceptable.
Just stick with what everybody else your age is doing and you'll be fine.
That's not age appropriate, you shouldn't (fill in the blank: speak, dress, act, feel) that way!
Stop acting like a little kid!
Why are you talking like you're 50?! Just act your age!

I get the fact that we grow up. I also get the fact that it's a pace-controlled process, not everyone "gets it" at the same age. But why is it that we don't perceive those differences in pace closely, that we might actually find flaws in our system? I'll break it down to you...we do.
It's quite impossible that I'd be the only one ever having difficulty in seeing why I am different.
If there's one thing I know, it's that everyone needs to break out from their age range once in a while.
There's gotta be a time when you feel like acting like a kid again. Or if you're a kid, you feel like handling one of life's serious questions. Only to find yourself getting laughed at in both cases.
I can't even count how many times I've seen someone my age speaking with maturity about a spiritual or social matter without hearing comments on how young they are. Sometimes these comments are meant to ridicule their opinions, sometimes they just marvel at their "untimely" wisdom.
I understand that life gives you experience. But living life yourself is not the only way to get it.
Reading, reflecting, listening, feeling and simply paying attention to life can grant you "wisdom beyond your years."
Some people live for years and still be immature, naive, inexperienced and oblivious. While others can attain maturity, spirituality and wisdom at a very young age. Both groups live life, but some make the most of it, while others let it pass by.
So, waiting to be a certain age to seek the truth, God and knowledge of your inner self is fine. Just you know that you could die now without seeing a side in life that you missed on purpose.
I'm definitely not saying you should try and act older than you are. I'm saying that with seeing the beauty of the present moment and age you're living, try and take a glimpse of life, experience  the thrill of unraveling truth.
Don't wait till you're an old person to reflect upon life. Do it now.

Love, Really?!

What kind of world makes us believe that every princess will be loved, and what if it's not true?
And language speaks poetry in the face of something so dangerous, what is it in these words that mystifies you?
When do these thoughts start swimming in my mind and set my heart to flood, and why does my temperature keep rising? -  Dan Haseltine, The Hawk In Paris

 

Disregarding that the pic on this video is not of the artist, I shall commence my interpretation of why I chose this verse of this particular song to start off ,and what are the circumstances that made it pop into my head in the first place.

Where I live Valentine's day is celebrated twice a year. For some reason in November 4, and the international/ western day of February 14. So it's pretty obvious why I'm writing about this now. I searched Wikipedia for Valentine's Day to find out why there's a conflict or duplication of the celebration date. And since I've practically found nothing, I just kept on reading. I came across two words that stirred some thought or should I say curiosity, the first being "Courtly Love" (not Courtney Love, people!). This one is defined mostly as a relationship where the man sees his lady love interest as superior to him, so he tries to win her affection by doing acts of chivalry, nobility and expressing his non-sexual attraction to her, mostly praising her mind and soul. 

The second is "Platonic Love", that is any relationship based on chaste (non-sexual) love and admiration, be it among two men, two women or a man and a woman. It was named after Plato, who first defined it as a superior emotion to any other, he even named it Divine Eros (divine love) as the opposite to vulgar, earthly, materialistic love. And it was considered by later, 15th century European, Christian philosophers as a state where the people having these emotions use them to draw themselves closer to the ultimate good, that is God. Both of these forms have been expressed heavily in works of literature, mainly poetry.

Wow! That's some thinking. I wonder how far the mankind has drifted away from thinking this way. I wonder why the concepts of love and sexuality have been so mixed and messed up together that it's hard for anyone to picture the former without the latter being involved. Yes, love can exist solely without the help of any other emotion as a source of motivation. Or at least that's what I'd like to think. I think that modern day Earth is a place where personal desires are over-rated. It's saddening actually to regard something so beautiful as a co-dependent thing, or more terribly, dismissing the idea of its existence in the first place!

Love is the greatest gift ever given to Earth by its creator. He made us capable of loving so that we wouldn't drown in an endless hole of self-concern, leading to self-destruction. It made us able to protect who/ what we love and even bother to care for them when needed. It is beautiful, divine, special and should be more common. This ought to bring a lot more peace and serenity to this war-torn, plagued and shattered place we call home.

P.s. I might have been under the influence of lemon tea and a terrible sore throat infection while writing this. So, yeah...

Caught inside a stereotype?!

Being a girl is tough. I can go on all day about sexism and gender inequality, but what would I be adding to a debate as old as time?! I'll just talk about a side of it that I see girls my age suffer from. What is it? Well, it's the "YOU GIRL, YOU DO ONE THING WELL, ONE THING ONLY" type.
YES, I do get the frequent stares and hums when I raise my hands in class and answer a question correctly. Yes, people don't get over the fact that although I take care of how I look I can still be a good student. And what surprises me most is that these people might be other girls my age who don't get the whole picture. As if to be actually good at something, you'll have to sacrifice every other aspect of your life. Like being smart or good at school, you'll have to be that nerdy girl who is socially awkward and doesn't know how to make human contact. Or being fashion forward and popular, you'll have to be a total loss at school or a mirror hugging snob. You get one label, and you have to live with it!!
See, people feel more comfortable when they classify other people into "types", it makes it easier for their brains to process them. Before I hit 13, I was that geeky, socially awkward kid, who was probably thought of as a boy with a braid. My mom often told me that girls don't have to be pretty. If you're not pretty, that's because you're smarter than other girls who fitted more within their surrounding. I had little to no contact with mirrors up till I turned 10 or so. It was then that I realized why my mom kept telling me I was special, and why I was being teased and bullied at school by boys and girls alike. I was an ugly kid, but I've never even knew it. Being top of my class for the whole elementary school period made me think that smart is what a girl should be, nothing else, just smart. It was a deformed image of perfection I had of myself. I even laughed at the other girls who hit puberty before me and started to get crushes on boys, so they would tidy up their hair and put a smile on their make-up-less faces when the tween boys were around. Those were the boys that considered me their friend who would help them with their homework, why would I even care how I looked in front of them?!! Princess tales seldom entered our house, I was never told to expect a prince outside my doorstep. I wasn't the one checking the comic page in our weekly newspaper as much as the world affairs and economics page...at 2nd grade!

The ironic thing about this is that the turning point was caused by something ridiculous! We had just moved into a new apartment in a much nicer neighborhood, it had this large mirror decoration in the living room. An entire wall was a mirror. I couldn't help but see my face whenever I went around the house. It was right there, and I didn't like it.
Also cable TV, my first interaction with the world of Disney princesses, pop stars and fashion shows. I started comparing, why wasn't I as glamorous as these actresses, with their touched up hair, awesome clothes and sassy attitudes. Yeah right, I'm the "smart girl". Smart isn't supposed to be pretty! I should be forever confined to that image of the nerdy kid in sneakers and a sweater vest. Now I know why mom used to tell me not all girls are supposed to be pretty, that's simply because I wasn't. Her way of preventing me from being shocked by the reality that I'll never be as good-looking as other girls is that I'm smarter! Okay then, but I didn't choose to be smart, I'd rather be pretty, sociable or funny. I hated it, and started going in the opposite direction. I'd spend extensive hours fixing my frizzy hair into cooler, early 2000's curly styles. I'd save up my allowance to get a new piece of clothing or some accessories. I'd listen to music and get some other girls to listen to it just to have some "friends" with something to talk about. I didn't study, I subconsciously rejected what I had been for what I wanted to become. A girl.

Sometime then, I realized that the image I had of myself and what I wanted to be is a messed-up one. I am not a grotesque creature who doesn't belong to the female gender of the human race, nor do I want to become a TV star or a supermodel. I didn't have to reject what God has gifted me with in order to be popular or accepted. I didn't need to run after an image that doesn't represent who I am.
I look very different now, the shift took a while to happen . I'd be lying if I said that I had ever dreamed of looking so "girl like"! If you had met me at 12, you'll know what I mean ;)

I like to dress up, wear make-up, have friends and get straight A's. It confuses people who like to put labels on other people, it also disappoints some teachers who might think I'm a sell-out for promoting the "non-Marie Curie/ Rosalind Franklin" image of a smart girl. But I admit my life has become much better once I realized I don't have to sacrifice part of my being for another one. I just pray it stays that way!

Smart Barbie