I never realized how important it would be to me to feel beautiful, to feel pretty. I thought looking nice would ruin my life. Or, at least, that was how I interpreted it when my dad told me about girls who looked nice and had boyfriends. They drank and had sex and got pregnant and were eventually left behind.

It wasn’t truly that my dad wouldn’t let me, just that I never thought he would approve. So I never tried to look nice. In Middle school, as girls started doing hair and makeup and wearing those cute clothes, I stuck to my baggy tee- shirts, frizzy hair, and loose jeans.
I started realizing how behind I was in eighth grade and even more in ninth grade. I could see how other girls started choosing their own styles, doing pretty things with their hair; I wasn’t blind. I wore dresses sometimes and tried to look decent when we had to dress up for cross country or track meets. Still, I doubt I would have changed much if it wasn’t for the dances.
I wore a long, light purple dress to Homecoming Freshman year.
I had my hair in an updo, so the back of my shoulders and my neck were exposed. To this day, my shoulders are my favorite part of myself, the part I look at in the mirror when I’m trying on strappy dresses. 
At the dance, people told me that I looked nice, that they liked my dress, that my hair was pretty. I decided that I liked it, so I picked my clothes a little more carefully. Did those pants actually fit? Did I actually like that shirt, or was I wearing it because I didn’t want to care? I started to change how I dressed.
Ever so slowly.
I knit my dress for Snowfest later that year. It was simple, just knit 6, purl 2 for the most  part with a little bit of shaping, but it still took me almost a month of constant knitting at home, at school, and on the bus to finish it.
There was a boy, of course, that I liked. I sat by him on the bus while I knit along, foot by foot. I kept hoping he would ask about it. He never did, but I was not disheartened.
My best friend is Tori Black. We’ve been best friends since first grade. Her family is my family, and the same is true for her. She came over before Snowfest that year to get ready with me. We got our hair done at a salon.
Tori did my makeup because I didn’t know how to; I was disappointed in myself. How could I not know how to do something as simple as my own makeup in High School? Fifth graders could do that much.
That night I asked the boy to dance with me. He said sure. Looking back the whole thing was silly, but back then I felt so proud and so happy.
“Do you have any makeup?” I asked my mother timidly the next day. She seemed a little confused at first. She didn’t do her makeup anymore, so she gave me some mascara and eyeshadow she still had from college, and I used it.
My dad noticed. “Why do you have to dress that way?” he would ask, but my mother told me to ignore him, so I did. He got over it eventually.
My dress for Homecoming Sophomore year was hot pink. It was short and fitted my waist. It flowed down in little ripples, and I loved it.
I went to Tori’s house and her mother did our hair. Mine was clipped back and flowed down my back. It was special because she’d done it. It was someone I knew and loved, who was like a second mother to me. I wanted to be able to do that myself, for my children and their friends.
At Homecoming a boy asked me to dance. A senior boy,who thought somewhere in his head that I was worth dancing with. It made me feel beautiful, like I was worth looking at.
After that Homecoming, I did my hair more. I straightened it more often and learned how to do braids and twists.
At Snowfest later that year, another boy asked me to dance. This boy was different. He started talking to me every day. The Wednesday after the dance, he sat next to me on the floor after school. He had on wrestling shorts and those big white socks. He didn’t make me fluster or blush. He made me laugh, made me smile.
Eventually he asked me to be his girlfriend, and eventually I said yes.
The last dance I went to was Prom. I went with my boyfriend; it was a lot of fun, and everything was absolutely perfect. He put my corsage on my wrist and the lacy ribbons danced around my hand as I pinned a flower to his chest.
I had a wonderful time, but I realized that night that I was done changing. I am content with who I am. Now, I do my hair along with my makeup.  I wear dresses just because I want to and just because it feels nice. But the change goes beyond how I look on the outside. I feel good about how I look when I leave the house in the morning. I feel confident when I walk into a room. And most importantly, I know that that’s okay. By changing slowly as I did, I didn’t shy away from being feminine. I embraced it slowly, taking baby steps to get to who I am and how I am today.