If I think why I shaved my eyebrows or why I stuffed my bra years ago, it made sense.
In high school, I was timid, shy, and all I wanted was to feel that I belonged.
I hated my thin, straight eyebrows. I despised my small, birdlike body. And, I envied. I envied the Hispanic girls in my class, the apples of everyone’s eye.
(I’m surprised I never developed green undertones at the time. My jealousy seethed and burned like coals in a never-ending furnace. Emphasis on never-ending.)
I wanted to become those girls — the girls who got invited to parties, the girls upperclassmen boys flirted with, the girls who failed so many tests and brushed it off as a hilarious, inside joke. I saw them as these beautiful, stupid creatures and, at the time, all I could feel was pathetic.
Pathetic for acting more dumb than I knew I was. (Hindsight: I thought acting dumb and making crude comments would make the boys laugh, and maybe — just maybe, they would glance my way.)
Pathetic because I accidentally shaved my eyebrows off (Hindsight: I don’t know how shaving excess brow hairs equalled thick, arched brows. Doesn’t make sense.)
Pathetic for stuffing my bras, so I wouldn’t be in the Itty-Bitty Titty Committee. (Hindsight: Funny, because I try to avoid wearing bras now. It’s so comfortable to wear no bra underneath my clothes. And, much easier to get away with too since, small boobs.)
Now? I don’t feel pathetic.
I like to think of those formative years as growing pains (some years more painfully so. It’s hard to cover your cartoonishly penciled, severely lacking brows with your side bangs when it’s a windy day. And, there were many windy days.)
And, even though those years were filled with tears and riddled with insecurities, they make for great stories.
