“What do I want to look like?”
This is the question I ask myself now that I’m back in SF and both the climate and the holes in all my clothes necessitate adaptation.
There’s something so uncomfortable about this question, though, because when I’m in dressing rooms all I see in the mirror is the enraged 12-year-old tomboy who can’t stand how she looks and hates the girls section in all its early 2000’s pink, sequins, sparkles, one-size-fits-all, low-slung, skinny tall girl bullshit.
I remember shopping trips with my mom and grandma were long and grueling. Hours doing the mall loop, I’d find nothing, finally taking refuge in the boys section. My grandma, seeing my distress, would help me pick out a “boys” graphic tee, in black and usually with a skull on it. Relief.
What do I want to look like?
Well, perhaps deep down I wanted to look like the other girls. Blonde, flat-chested, tall, everything fits, straight hair, cultures that need no introduction, always in the movies…
But what did I actually like? Baggy fits, graphic tees, Vans, backwards hats (so many backwards hats), denim overalls, loose braids, skateboards, video games, books, punk, Spanish rock, and leather.
As I grew, though, obviously my body changed and there was nothing more enraging than all my favorite clothes fitting differently. Of course! They were built for skinny, knobbly-knee’d boys and my DNA visibly reminded me and the world that I’m Colombian. I felt cursed.
I started to begrudgingly pick from the girls section, balancing a blouse with black cargo pants and checkered vans (progress is slow). To my added irritation, however, the girls section didn’t fit well either—chubby, short, full-chested girls like me just didn’t exist in the 2000’s, not according to Forever 21 or whatever.
To this day, I’m embarrassed to say, I can only spend so long in any store before I become overwhelmed, lump in my throat, on the verge of tears. I still carry that distress forward, after all these years.
The way I dress has always been up for public debate.
All sorts of adults in and outside of school thought it was okay to ask 7 year old me if I thought I was a boy or if I was lesbian, moms sending their older daughters to “talk to me,” trying to understand my baggy shirts, people whispering at parties about the little girl in overalls and weird shirts. It was confusing.
All I knew to respond was, “I’m a tomboy. I’m a girl who likes to dress like a boy.” Not really understanding what that even meant or what the fuss was about.
Later, when I started to dress more “girly,” show more skin and dress to my body type (something not considered necessarily sexual in my culture), I became the playground topic of conversation and the subject of concern for other, very vocal parents. Adult motivations I was too young to understand, were ascribed to me, and the narrative became that I was now showing my femininity too prominently and the boys (and clearly their parents) couldn’t handle it.
I couldn’t win, I came to hate how I looked, and I just wanted to hide. I thought all this attention was my fault and I asked myself why the hell can’t I just get it right?
All these years later it’s still hard to shake the rage of not finding clothes that fit.
It’s hard to shake the pressure to look or act more femininely, the right amount of feminine, especially when I was punished and harassed for doing just that.
So in reflecting on what I need to replace, what I’m looking for, and what I want to look like, I’ve been reexamining my relationship with clothing.
As I get older, I find I’m re-inspired by my tomboy roots. I like that I didn’t care, at least for a while.
And I’m still drawn to the men’s section with its made to last construction, muted colors, and tailoring—some things that Bryce taught me to appreciate.
Shopping with him is like shopping in an alternative universe. He knows what looks good, what he likes, and if something doesn’t fit he writes it off as the brand’s fault not his. Through him, I’ve evolved my understanding of clothing, how it’s just tool and not a reflection of my self-worth, and also that it’s always fully in my control.
As a woman, how I look will always be up for public debate, but I’m slowly learning how to drown the noise, how to block it from becoming my own thoughts. Accepting that I will never be perfect and that I will always be picked apart.
Meeting myself where I am, then, has meant reframing the question “What do I want to look like?” to “What looks like me?”
While I can’t pretend like I’m healed or that I have cracked the code to self-acceptance or even completely shaken the pressure to look a certain way, this distinction has helped me pick things I like, because I like them and not because I think someone else will like them or because I think it will make me more relatable (or more invisible).
Some days I’m in loose fit pants and a hoodie and yes, I still own multiple black skull T-shirts. Others, I’ll wear some of the more feminine things I used to loath—a recent interview favorite has been a hot pink blouse with navy trousers. And though I can’t say you’ll ever see me in sequins or that I particularly love wearing a dress (halfway through my wedding reception I changed into a white jumpsuit my mom had at the ready, because, of course), I like to think I’ve made peace with both the men and the women’s sections.
I’m working on making peace with myself.
🤍