Member-only story
Embrace Your Awkward
A story of many looks, from someone who never fit in.
My teenage awkward stage lasted a decade.
At age 10, I made my Mom make me a turquoise poncho, which I wore with a beret. I started dyeing my golden blond hair red with henna.
At 12, I was shopping with my Mom when I saw some fun, yellow fabric. I asked her to make a pair of wide-legged pants, which I wore to school the next day. With a bright green cropped t-shirt and red suspenders with elephants on them.
In 8th grade, I dyed my hair black and cropped it to about two inches long. I wore only miniskirts to school every day, all through the brutal Finnish winter.
All these times, and many others, I was laughed at. It didn’t stop me.
A Rebellious High Schooler
I started high school on the other side of town. Nobody knew me, except for two of my best friends.
And my older sister, of course. She has always been more the type of person who didn’t want to stand out from the crowd. At that stage, she was dating a basketball player and dressing like a Stepford wife, in my opinion. She instructed me to do the same, to look like I belonged.
