I suppose I'm fortunate

I'm the oldest of five. However, I suppose more like the oldest two. There's an eight year gap between my brother and I and our three sisters. The nice thing about having that large age gap is that we really didn't have any arguments. We really didn't have anything in common. 

I remember my mom telling me the story about her and her sisters. My mom is the oldest of three. They also have an adopted sister. This made her the oldest of four. They're close in age.

She told me after she went to college she got her haircut. She was never allowed to cut her hair. She always had long waist length hair. My grandfather absolutely forbade her to cut her hair; but, when she went to college, she cut it short in this cute little bob. But, before she did, she braided it, tied a bow just at where she wanted it cut, and had the stylist cut it well above the length that she wanted. 

She reattached the the hair neatly with that cute and clever bow every time she visited home. It still appeared as if she had long hair. This worked out for her for a really long time until this one visit. My Aunt Tabbie found out my mom cut her hair. At dinner my mom was setting the table. My Aunt got behind her and pulled her neatly, braided pony tail off. My grandfather was Furious.

My mom said she and my aunt didn't talk for a really long time after. She and her sisters are fairly close in age. I can't imagine having that kind of an argument for that duration of time with my siblings. I suppose fortunate that way.

Accepting someone for who they are is priceless

I remember the first time my dad took me fishing. My grandmother was not pleased. I was the only girl on the entire trip. I was in grade school. My brother was really young. I'm fairly certain we were five and three.

We just moved to Illinois. I hadn't yet started school. It was our first trip. My mom allowed it because we had been living in Indiana. That's where my dad's family is from. We moved to Illinois because of her job. 

It was kind of Dad's thing to take my brother and I fishing during breaks and in the summers. One of the things that he really enjoyed doing was inviting his new friends from his new job in Illinois as an accountant. I know this just killed my dad. Accounting was not his first love. But he did love numbers and he was really good at it. He made a lot of really good friends at that job. But I'm on a tangent. 

First trip. My brother was there. My cousin was there. A bunch of kids were there. None of us had really been fishing before. My dad and the other dads were showing us how to bait our hooks. I remember everyone being very eager to just grab a worm or grab a cricket and put it on the line to start fishing. Until of course, they tried it. That was just not fun for a lot of the guys. 

Me? I was a tomboy and I was invincible and fearless for the longest time. It didn't bother me to bait my own hook. It didn't bother me to fish. It didn't bother me to fish in the rain. I liked fishing in the rain. It was the best time to catch fish because they all came to the surface just as the rain stopped. It didn't bother me to reel in my own fish, take them off my line, put them on the stringer, rebait my hook, and reset my line. 

People thought I was weird. Even that didn't bother me at the time. My Dad encouraged me. He taught me how to fish, shoot, camp, whittle. I fit in, away from the rest of the world. 

I suppose what stuck with me after all these years is hearing that I wasn't normal from other adults I respected and that unshakable wave of emotions that went along with it. I remember overhearing I wasn't a real girl. Real girls don't behave the way I did. It was hurtful. I can forgive the person. I can forget the precise wording. I can't seem to shake the feeling and that look of disappointment and disapproval. Its been decades.

It always made me proud when my children pushed their boundaries. It's not that I didn't. It's that I hurt inside when I did. My children have a strength I never had. I smile when my granddaughter asks for toy cars or my grandson wants a doll or a princess crown. I love that they aren't forced into gender roles. Gender roles are damage over time. They'll eat away at your sense of self worth and your self confidence. Oftentimes in irrecoverable ways. 

My Dad and I didn't always see eye to eye. However, when I was a child, he always encouraged me to be myself. He always gave me the freedom to try. He told me it was alright as long as I liked doing it. It didn't matter what anyone else thought. He punctuated his point with several videos and photos of himself in costume when he was younger. My Dad was a dancer. 

After all this time, I've finally stopped looking for your approval. There are somethings you should never chase. You'll never receive it. When I learned to believe in myself for who I am, I realized I don't need to change for people to like me or for someone to love me. I just have to let people in.

I knew - That made all the difference in the world

I must have been around 10 years old the first time I wore real adult makeup without anybody's help, out of the house. My mom asked me about it, not because she noticed. She saw it in my purse or rather, my brother ratted me out. 

It wasn't really much. I had on very light foundation, a little bit of powder and a little bit of lip gloss. I'm fairly certain that was all. That wasn't the point. The point was, it made me feel significant. I rarely felt noteworthy.

That day was special. I don't even really remember why. I just know that for some reason, I had to be dressed up. Wearing just that little bit of makeup made me feel put together. Even though you really couldn't tell I was wearing any. I knew I was wearing it. That was the important thing. 

I think the point of anything we do isn't that anyone knows that we're doing it, wearing it or have it. It's that we know. That's all it takes to make a real difference. 

If you feel beautiful, you are beautiful

I was like every other teenager. When given advice, I rolled my eyes hard. My Auntie Rose and Uncle Tito were kind enough to give me a job every summer. I worked in their office in the billing department. My Aunt liked to give me advice. 

One of the things that she always liked to say was, if you feel beautiful, you are beautiful. It always made me laugh because I never felt beautiful. People always told me I was pretty, but I never felt pretty. Not ever. Not once. Nowadays, I'm over 50, and I realize I have that unique look that some people find attractive. 

When I was younger, anytime someone told me I was pretty, or beautiful, or cute. I always assumed they were being sarcastic. My aunt told me not to be so skeptical. She told me that I needed to feel beautiful before I could accept compliments. I tried. She used to take me to mall. She loved shopping. That was her thing. We would try on makeup and perfume. Get our nails done. I'm not really sure why she liked to dote on me so much. She had children of her own. I was her husband's brother's child who happened to work in her office. She seemed to enjoy my company. 

It's taken me really, really long time, several decades, in fact, to understand what she meant by, you have to feel beautiful to look beautiful. I think what you really meant to say was, you have to care about yourself before you can understand why others see you the way they do. Or before you can see through the eyes of other people, before you can see what others see. That I can get on board with, that I understand. 

So, here I am early in the morning doing my nails in my attempt to feel just a little more beautiful than I did yesterday. Thanks Auntie Rose.