Out From The Shadows
I think I first became aware of style back in middle school. It was the junior high school prom to be exact. Out of nowhere, I decided I didn’t want to wear a regular pretty dress like all the other girls. I wanted to wear a tux. And not just any tux, mind you. A pink satin tux. With tails. Lol, yup, I sure did:) Somehow my mother made it happen. She didn’t laugh at me. In fact, her eyes sort of twinkled in a mischievous way, and she grinned. A few weeks later I had a fitting at some lady’s house to try on my new tux. I wore it with little white pumps too. How I wish I could find a pic of THAT get up!
The thing I remember even more than that outfit, though, was the way I felt in it. Like a million bucks. Full of a confidence that I really didn’t have, but for just a few hours, I felt like the belle of the ball. That was when my young mind began to understand what clothes could do for a person. They enabled me to stand out, be an individual even before I knew who I was. I was able to “speak”, send a message, without saying a word. That is the power of fashion and that outfit was my fledgling attempt at finding and expressing my personal style.
For the longest time I floundered in trying to figure out my identity. I was very shy when I was younger. Afraid of my own shadow, insecure, quiet…ironically, pretty much everything I’m not today. And I was comfortable that way. I liked being invisible. No one bothers you when they don’t notice you. It’s safe, or at least that’s what it feels like. The moment you speak up or do something that draws attention to yourself, you are then open to the scrutiny, opinions, judgements and criticisms of others. Pretty scary when you don’t have a sense of self strong enough to withstand it all. So I stayed in the shadows for the most part. Except for when I performed.
I loved my dance/musical theater life. That’s where I escaped and could become that “other person”, that girl who could be noticed on stage. I came alive in front of an audience. Whether singing or dancing, part of an ensemble, doing a solo or duet, it didn’t matter. I’d found a place where I could “speak” as loudly as I wanted and the better, the “louder” I performed, the more they seemed to love me or, rather, that “other person” I became. I basked in it. It was an immediate fill to the void I felt, and it spoke to that need we all have to feel loved and appreciated. But off stage, I reverted back to being invisible. I did that for years, from elementary up through most of high school.
My insecurities and lack of identity also came from the way I dressed. My brothers and I were raised in Brooklyn, NY by a single mother. We struggled. A one room efficiency was home and we didn’t have the “latest and greatest” of anything. Forget nice or fancy clothes. Plenty of times I recall wearing “high waters”, pants that were too short and came up above the ankles, an absolute tell-tale sign that you couldn’t afford to shop for new clothes. There was nothing special, cute or remotely stylish about me. I was drab. Ordinary. And that is how I always felt growing up. I wasn’t one of those pretty, cute girls. I was very awkward and struggled with issues around being dark and super skinny. I remember being teased while riding the bus from school one day, being called “one of those starving Ethiopians”. It was back around the time the song, “We Are The World” was popular. It was a painful, dark childhood in many ways. From time to time, however, I escaped into another world again, this time via my fashion magazines.
I don’t recall when I first became infatuated with fashion, but whenever it happened, it became permanent. I would spend hours in those magazines, idolizing the models on their pages. I plastered their pics to my wall, knew them by name. In fact, in my mind we were on a first name basis: Paulina, Gail, Christy, Elle, Naomi, Linda, Beverly, Cindy, Stephanie, Karen and of course, above all, Iman. Somehow their images just made me happy, made me feel better. I aspired to be so beautiful, elegant, confident and of course, fashionable. I was infatuated with all of it. I studied the beautiful clothes, the pictures, how they were framed, the locations they used. My magazines were everything to me.
Then around senior year in high school something changed. I went through another period of solitude, but this time an aloneness of a good kind. The kind where you spend time learning who you are. I’d grown tired of feeling low all the time; tired of not feeling good about myself, of always feeling like less than everyone else, in everyone else’s shadow. So I separated from my friends for a while and just began to get in touch with myself (something I believe EVERYONE needs to do). I became my own best friend. Somehow, instinctively, I just knew that I needed to draw away for a while. All of a sudden I started to “wake up”. I became more alive in some way. The shy, quiet girl started to disappear and I began to evolve into someone else. I became more vocal, more “colorful”. My “black & white” existence was changing. I got a personality! And all of that began to be reflected in the way that I carried myself. I stopped looking down at the ground when I walked. I began to walk with some confidence, with my head up, looking straight ahead. Gradually, I started to take more care of myself. I began to dress better too, and wear my hair in something other than my typical long ponytail. I no longer wanted to be invisible. I wanted to be happy; to laugh and enjoy people. I became social and would come alive in group settings. Me. The girl who had always been afraid to speak up or be noticed, became quite comfortable at social gatherings. In fact, I THRIVED in that environment.
This transformation, my personal epiphany, only started to happen once I took time to get in touch with ME. I began to learn to love myself. I still had a looooong journey ahead toward truly achieving self-love, but at least I had come to the point where I could look in the mirror and begin to actually like the person staring back at me. At least I’d found the courage to take those first steps toward a healthier me. My confidence didn’t start to come until I looked inward. It didn’t come because I got fancier, more expensive, nicer clothes. It started to come when I got honest with myself about who I was, where I was. I learned then that you have to start from the inside and work your way out, not the reverse. If you do it from the outside first, the moment your exterior changes or you can no longer keep up with the trends, your self-esteem is impacted. When it comes from within, however, nothing and no one can take that from you. Now I can wear sweats and a t-shirt and feel just as fabulous as when dressed to the nines. Lesson learned: your shine comes from the inside out.
I guess all of this, my story, explains why I’m so passionate now about helping other women feel good about themselves; why I’m so driven to see them empowered and celebrated. It’s because I KNOW the pain of insecurity and low self-esteem. I know it can cripple, silence and paralyze you. But I also know that it is nothing but a trick of the enemy, ALL based on lies. Thankfully, I found the Truth for myself and today, I am a living, breathing, walking testimony that you CAN find yourself, find your voice, and become the bright, bold, colorful, confident queen that you were ALWAYS intended to be.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, I have no intentions of EVER going back to the shadows. I’m quite comfortable out here in the light. I was born for this.
Source: Model Moxy