Slowly, my inner girly-girl and my inner tomboy are becoming reaquainted. As a small child, I came equipped with frilly, poufy dresses and industrial strength corduroy overalls. I played fairy princess and pirate. I climbed trees and held tea parties for my dolls.
As I headed into grade school, the girly-girl tooks over more and more. I was a bit of an outsider already, and didn't need boyish tendencies to make me stick out further. I was into pretty clothes in pink and purple, make-up and accessories. I read YM, Seventeen and books by Judy Bloom. I permed my hair, teased my bangs and pegged my pants legs.
By my second year in high school, the tomboy was getting ready for a take over. I had been told so often that women couldn't do this or that, and that they weren't as good as men at things (with girly-girlness being used as evidence) that I shoved most of that away to prove a point. My uniform was t-shirt and jeans with an occasional flannel. I rarely wore skirts of dresses. I owned a couple pairs of servicable shoes that went with almost everything. The make-up and earrings disappeared.
This trend continued into college, when I wore combat boots, pants from the men's dept, and a man's black leather folding wallet in my back pocket. I still had the urge to be femmy at timess, but I mostly saved it for costume occasions. I felt uncomfortable and awkward if caught doing something "girly".
It wasn't until the last year or so of college, and the recent years after graduation that I have started to re-integrate the yin and yang of my personality.I can still wear the combat boots if I want, but I'm also not afraid to own and wear silly, pretty shoes. I still have the men's wear jeans, butI can also pull on the hip huggers. I alternate between the back pocket wallet and a purse (though the back pocket wallet is now sometimes a light-blue coin purse with a few necessary card and some cash). I've realized that there are so many sides to my personality that anyone judging me by my clothes is going to get a terribly inacurate picture no matter *what* I wear, that I might as well wear whatever catches my fancy.
It feels good to be happy with who I am.
