With March being Women’s History Month, I wanted to share my thoughts on one aspect of my history as a woman–my “tomboy” phase. When I think back to my middle school self, I think about how I wore my hair thrown up in a high pony, paired with a band t-shirt, jeans, and Vans practically every single day. The girliest trait I would’ve admitted to was that my favorite color is pink (always has been). For a long time after getting out of that phase, I hated how cringey I thought I was in middle school. And even though I may have missed out on a few certain things by acting so “tomboyish,” I have also realized recently how much my middle school self taught me.
To start with the outfit thing, I’m honestly still torn. I mean, I had a serious collection of band t-shirts. Obscure ones. I won’t get into the specifics, but no matter how unheard of the band was, I wore those t-shirts with pride. Looking back, I used to wonder what middle school me was thinking, but these days, I admire her style. She knew what she liked and she wore it, unapologetically. Taking that and learning from it, I’ve been trying to reconnect with my old style. I still wear jeans very frequently, but I think honing into a sort of elevated version of my middle school attire would make the old me proud. The occasional band tee, styled with a baggy pant and a cool jacket is a really fun way I’m finding makes me feel truly myself, but not at all cringed out with middle school flashbacks.
I’d say middle school is a pretty formative time for social skills too, which I sometimes think I screwed up for myself a little bit. I’ve already established how I dressed in middle school (not the coolest), and I’m going to clue you in that 12-year-old me was not flirting either, or even considering it. Maybe I suffer now from a lack of ability to talk to men, but maybe middle-school me had the right idea with just avoiding it altogether, who knows?
On top of my questionable outfit choices, I also kept my hair and makeup very, very simple in middle school. I don’t regret that, but at times I do feel it put me a little behind the game in those categories. I started trying to learn how to do makeup in high school, but I only wore it on special occasions at first. Pretty recently I’ve started wearing at least some blush, bronzer, and mascara on a daily basis, but I still have to ask somebody for advice whenever I want to do something like contour, a lip color, or some sort of eyeliner. I just never taught myself those things, so now I tend to go without them, which is fine. However, I do think that that need to ask others for makeup advice has become pretty ingrained. Since I just feel like I have no idea what I’m doing when I do makeup, I often feel the need for someone other than myself to approve my makeup, just in case it looks bad and I can’t tell. This feeling can get pretty tiring, always needing to ask if I look okay. I think it’s important for me to remember that I’m not helpless, especially with how many YouTube makeup tutorial videos there are out there. At the end of the day, I have the ability to learn these skills, and even if I choose not to, all that matters is that I like how I look and that I feel confident in myself. Remembering this and pushing myself to be self-assured is a battle, but it’s so important.
Over these past few years, I’ve spent so much time trying not to be everything that I disliked about the middle school me that I found I was almost holding back from being myself. I’m realizing now that the girl I was in 2016 was not purely cringey, but she was kind of cool. She was completely herself and didn’t hold anything back. She knew who she wanted to be and that’s exactly what she presented to the world. She didn’t walk through life waiting for someone to tell her that her outfit was cool or that her hair looked nice. I think that in these ways, I have a lot to learn from my former tomboy self. However, I’ve also found so much more freedom in completely cutting out the term “tomboy” from my vision of myself. I could wear overalls one day and a flower-print skirt the next. I could ride a dirtbike through the mud with a full face of makeup on if I want. It all comes down to who I am as a person, not whether I’m a “girly girl” or a “tomboy.” I can be both, or neither, or whatever else I want to be. That freedom was always there, but I think it’s pretty common for people to get caught up in trying to define themselves while growing up. I know now that there’s really no need to put a word to it, I just want to wear what I want and do what I want, and feel confident about it. There’s no peace in wondering what style category an outfit, makeup look, or hairstyle falls into, but the most important thing is to wear what makes me feel like myself. It’s definitely been a journey realizing this, and the journey of embodying it will be ongoing, but I’m happy to have some new goals about prioritizing my own comfort in just being who I am.