Eighth grade was particularly difficult for me. In fact, all of junior high was like walking through a tank full of piranhas with a cut foot. But in eighth grade, I had the trifecta of bully-magnet looks:
- I had braces
- I got glasses
- The same week I got the glasses, I decided to dye my hair ‘Strawberry Blonde’.
I did this because the cute guy who wore a velour shirt liked blondes. I liked him. I figured dyeing my light brown hair blonde would change everything.
So, after my mom did that small ‘patch test’ under my hair that the box said to do, she stepped back. “It looks a little pink,” she said.
Actually, it turned out to be a horrific ‘Magic Shell’ pink, like the instant-dry stuff they used to dribble over your ice cream at Dairy Queen. But I wanted what I wanted, and once Velour Brent saw my hair, my life would be perfect. We would date, marry, have a set of velour kids and be rich.
For some reason, in eighth grade, I also wanted to be rich. So I walked into class with my new hair the next day.
Not only didn’t Brent like my hair, but the entire class laughed and pointed. It was just like an 80s movie, except I didn’t have some classmate or fairy janitor or anyone else to give me a makeover so I could appear at a prom where everyone would suddenly love me.
No, I stayed—in my opinion—ugly. And made fun of.
I had always felt odd, being very tall and skinny, and I didn’t need magic shell hair for people to gawk at me.
In reality, I was as cute and awkward as anyone else at that age. I tried to hide and change who I was, and I made it worse.
I used to do the same with my art, either creating what I thought would sell, or trying to paint like someone else. I don’t do that anymore. I noticed the things that sold were the things I created from my heart.
Have you ever felt like you’re not enough? Or you aren’t as good at something as someone else? One of my pastors said that if you think someone is thinking of you, they’re not.
People have two solutions to feeling ‘less than’: to hide; stay home, hunch over, or otherwise stay out of view, or to become something they’re not. A lot of us do the latter. Even I find myself sliding into a ‘mask’ or ‘costume’ with my art, or in life in general.
But when I realized, like you, that I was awesomely and wonderfully made, and what we are is exactly what the world needs, a burden was lifted. I was able to write, draw, paint, do whatever I did, and it didn’t matter what anyone thought.
Your talent, your way of doing things, your art or other work: that’s you, and someone needs it, pure and unadulterated. You are enough.
Now get out there and do your thing!
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