I was the girl who could outrun every boy in gym class. I wore shorts and high tops, hair in a puff or a ponytail, and didn’t care much for gloss or bangles. I liked sports. I liked moving fast, feeling strong. I liked winning.
I didn’t grow up thinking I wasn’t “girly.” I just wasn’t that kind of girl.
But I remember always admiring the girls who were.
The ones who sat with their legs crossed just right, the ones who wore matching barrettes and always smelled like strawberry lotion. I liked them. I really liked them.
But I didn’t think much of what that meant.
It wasn’t until middle school, maybe around eighth grade, that I started to change the way I dressed.
Not because I suddenly wanted to, but because my friends thought I should. “You’d look so pretty in a skirt,” they said. “You just need to try a little harder.” I wanted to fit in, so I little by little I did.
By high school, I had figured out how to wear what was expected. I wore dresses to dances, learned how to do my hair the way they liked. I heard the compliments. I smiled in the pictures.
But it never felt like me. Not completely.
I look back now, and I wonder if that shift was where I first learned to perform. To blend in and suppress the girl I was in favor of the girl I thought I had to be.
And the truth is… I still don’t know where that girl went. Or if she’s allowed to come back.
Did everyone feel that way? Or was it just me?