You know me; I’m the girl who struts down the hallways with tail and ears; I’m the girl who dresses in 6-inch heels; I’m the girl who everyone wonders about, the one that makes people ask: What’s that look? Well, you’re about to find out.

Even as a young child, I’ve always been different. In elementary school, different meant that you were an outcast, a freak, the kid that everyone would dislike or stay away from most of the time. I didn’t fit in and, in the 3rd grade, I only had one friend. My dad was in the military, which meant that we were always moving from place to place. I never really had a home. As a result of all of this, I would talk to myself.

When my father finally retired from the military and began his new job, things at school didn’t really change. We moved one last time to the house that I now call home. On my first day of fourth grade, at my new school, living in my new home, I made my first true friend. Her name was Sam. Everyone told me that I shouldn’t be her friend, that she was weird, that I would never be popular. But I didn’t care. Popularity didn’t bother me. I never had it before, so why would being this one girl’s friend change anything about my social status?

Sam was different like me, and I liked that. In elementry school,I was extremely fond of history -still am – to the point that I wanted to sink into the culture of the past. I began dressing Amish. I wore a blue hand-sewn bonnet that my mom had sewn for me from the scraps she had left over from past projects.

Sometimes, I would wear this picnic-blanket-patterned bonnet that I had bought at an Amish shop. For Christmas, my aunt had given me this brown floral dress with, long white sleeves and bow that tied up in the back. I wore that dress nearly every day to school. I never wanted to take it off.

In middle school, I outgrew the Amish phase and began to change for the worse. I dumped all my old friends, including Sam, for the opportunity to be popular. I dressed in over-the-top attire and stomped around in 6-inch high heels. Every day my face was caked with blue eyeshadow and popping red lipstick. There’s just one thing I forgot, I was different, and in middle school different meant that you were a nerd, a geek, a mega freak, and nobody worth noticing wanted to be your friend.

But that didn’t change what I thought of myself. I was fooled into believing that everyone loved me, that all the populars wanted to be my friend. To my surprise they were laughing behind my back and before I knew it, I was the laughingstock of the school. Videos spread of my terrible looks and goofy dance moves, which I realized weren’t as good as I thought. And even though my new friends were bullying me, I just knew that Sam and the girls wouldn’t want me back.

In high school, I just wanted to fit in. I didn’t want to be popular or stand out from the crowds. I wore normal clothes: jeans and a T-shirt. Bland and boring, but at least no one made fun of me. There was just one thing I forgot, I wasn’t bland or boring. My personality was too bubbly and sweet to go unnoticed. People that I didn’t even know were passing me by in the hallways and calling out my name. I tried to escape my past, to be normal, to fit in, to go unnoticed, but I sorta liked all the attention.

By the 10th grade, my sister, Abigail, had introduced me to Lolita: an alternative Japanese Fashion whose followers embellish themselves in patterned dresses, knee high socks, and petticoats. Immediately, I became obsessed with Pixielocks -an alternative fashion Youtuber – and from there I branched out to other alternative looks. I dressed in Decora, Fairy Kei, Lolita: Basically, if it was cute and alternative, I wore it.     

I began to receive compliments for my outgoing style because, apparently, in high school different means cool, unique, a chance to finally be me. Social norms and status don’t seem to matter as much as they once did in middle school. Sam and I became friends once again and within a matter of minutes, it was as though middle school never happened. We were able to be our normal goofy selves and, guess what, no one even cared. They didn’t call us weird or say that we shouldn’t be friends and, even if they did, it wouldn’t have mattered because we finally learned to accept our weirdness as a state of being. It’s who we are, and we’re not going to let anyone change that! So don’t be afraid to stand out, be yourself, and try things that may be out of the social norm because, in the end, the only person you have to please is yourself. Stand Out! Be Brave! Stand Strong!