It is 10:30 PM, and I am sitting my living room. My head hurts. I am wearing jeans, a tanktop, and pumps. Not because I’m going out or have any special plans for the evening, except going to bed in the near future because I feel a migraine coming on, pulsing in my right temple with irritating persistence. In fact, I am working on my New Year’s Resolution.
People usually make resolutions along the lines of “get in shape” and “get better marks this term.” And I am resolving to do those sorts of things as well. I want at least make an effort to exercise, because an effort is more than I’ve put forth so far. I would like to get all As and Bs this term. Some people make one or a few serious resolutions, like those, and then one silly one, such as “don’t smoke while jumping out of airplanes naked”. I, too, have a “fluffy” resolution, but it’s one I actually work at, at least a little.
I will learn to wear heels.
I guess I just want to learn to be a girl. I mean, I am a girl. I have all the right anatomy. But I’ve always been a bit of a tomboy, and that’s me. I’ll always be comfortable in jeans and t-shirt, but damnit, sometimes I want to be pretty. Sometimes I want to wear a skirt or a dress with ridiculously tall shoes and be 5′7″ or 5′8″ instead of 5′5″.
It’s not that I want to change who I am. There’s this sort of cliché where the tomboy becomes the pretty girl, but “sells out” and discovers she shouldn’t have done it, or whatever. People sometimes have this idea that I don’t like being feminine, and yeah, I went through a stage where I really wasn’t crazy about the whole feminine thing — I didn’t like skirts, or the colour pink, because those were girly and girly was bad. It’s like being a nine year old boy. But now, you know, I like pretty things. And sometimes I just want to wear heels, or skirts, or a dress, not because I think it’ll make people like me or because I want to fit in, because at this point, man, I just don’t care… but because I like it. Because it’s pretty and sometimes, you know, a girl just wants to look… pretty.
So I want to learn to wear heels, which have always terrified me. Before this Christmas, I owned one pair of heels which I hadn’t even seen in six months, much less worn (I’d left them at my mother’s house over summer break, and I think I’d worn them maybe twice in the year before that). I now own four pairs: two pairs of black pumps, one pair brown (bought earlier today), and a pair of black, heeled boots. It makes me happy to wear them, even when my feet start to ache and pinch and hurt.
I’d like to wear makeup, some of the time. I don’t even own any right now, but when I get some money, I think I’ll buy some. I won’t wear it all of the time, but sometimes, it would be nice.
I’m not about to turn in my baggy guy’s jeans, snarky t-shirts and comfortable sneakers. I am not going to wear high heels every day or six tons of makeup. But part of me avoiding these things hasn’t been a rebellion against the fashion industry or against how people expect girls to dress — part of it was I didn’t want to grow up, didn’t want to dress the way women do, like a grown-up instead of the fashionless six-year-old (if the shirt has flowers, and the shorts have flowers, they match; they might be completely different flowers and completely different colours, but they’re both flowers, and it might be incredibly busy, but they match, damnit) or the tomboy sixteen-year-old (pink is girly and it sucks). Another part was that I didn’t think I was pretty enough to pull of being, well… pretty. I didn’t have the self-confidence to wear heels, but now… I think I can pull it off. It might take a little practice, but I can.
I’m nineteen. I’m ready to dress like a grown-up now, and maybe actually get a date one of these days (wouldn’t that be nice?) and wear things because I like them without worrying about if I can “pull it off”. I like doing what people don’t expect. The fact is that I can pull it off, and it isn’t that damn hard. But wearing heels and looking pretty and girly and cute doesn’t change who I am, and I wouldn’t want it to. I can be pretty and still be a tomboy, and wearing a dress isn’t gonna stop me from calling everyone I meet “dude”.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
