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My Experience At My New School Essay

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Introduction There are pictures of me in dresses at five, six, and seven years old and wearing dog prints, denim, and velvet. Did I choose these? I do not remember ever being attracted to skirts and tights. When I was eight, I wore a pair of shorts that my mother had given me. They were bright red and a size large. I remember this because it was such a big deal to me. Girls on television did not wear a size large. During the fourth grade musical at my new school, in which I was one of the two starring roles, I wore red lipstick and blush for the first time. I looked clownish, but I thought that was what I was supposed to look like—that is what it meant to wear makeup. In that moment, I was a grown woman. Right? That is what the movies told me. Beauty is pain, I told my sixth grade friend a few years later, stroking my freshly waxed legs. It was the first time I had done anything to them. I do not remember if my mother had taken the butter knife towards me, or if I had asked her to do it. There were long patches on the backs of my legs where she had missed. I pretended to ignore them. I now associate hair with not being feminine, pants with not being feminine, and me with not being feminine. I stroked my unwaxed legs and said again, “beauty is pain.” “Feminine. Feminine. You are not feminine. Shave your arms when you are ten or eleven to feel the smoothness of your skin. Have your mother wax your legs. When you are twelve, have her wax your face, too. That makes you

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