Confessions of an Ex Tomboy

I have mentioned before that I have changed a lot in more recent years. One of those changes has been shedding my tomboy ways.

Yes, that is right, peeps...I considered myself a tomboy until 4 or so years ago.
I wasn't the uber sport jock (way too klutzy for that) or gross-talking-and-smelling-tomboys. I just always hung out with guys:

I have two brothers and all of our family friends growing up had three boys the same age as us. NO GIRLS. So I learned at an early age to not be too girly as a matter of survival.

After that I just always enjoyed hanging around guys. I understood what they were saying and how to talk to them (in monosyllabic words and grunts-Never NEVER do the girly excitement voice to a guy unless you have been dating them for at least a month. Then it is endearing). I knew all the sports scores because I had to watch ESPN Sportscenter every morning with my brothers as we got ready for school. I knew how to talk sports (esp. college football) because if I didn't then no one would talk to me in the fall.

Worst of all, being around my brothers (who are younger) and caring what they thought (they really were my best friends), made me not want to make them notice the stuff that made them say, "EWWWWW."

What made them say, "EWWWWW" or openly mock me:
-Acting like I liked boys
-Makeup
-hair products
-dresses that had a hemline above the knee
-tank tops
-lots of pink

As you can see these are things that normal teenage girls get into...and I did not. I always liked them from a far but mocked them with the guys I hung out with. I told them that it seemed silly to me...as did a lot of things that teenagers did (drinking, smoking, disobeying your parents) and I wouldn't do them.

I would put on a little make up at school after my mom dropped us off. Not because my mom didn't allow it...so my brothers wouldn't make comments. My mom would beg me to wear more make up for dances and recitals, would try to get me girly dresses and jewelry. The damage was done. Those things were "too girly" and I was not going to be a girly girl, a princess, a diva. I didn't want them bedazzeled on my clothes and I didn't want to be called that.

I still don't. But slowly and surely, I have liked how different make up makes me look better (SHOCK!). I like playing with the colors and styles. I also have a minor obsession with obtaining the perfect-shampoo-commercial hair. Of course, I did this in my own nerdy way: Do research, experiment, analyze, and perfect.

You might be saying to yourself, "Alex, what's the point?" Well the point is that even though I was a tomboy, I have been accepted to write on the online magazine Blissfully Domestic. I will be mainly writing beauty pieces. So in the upcoming months, I will be picking your brains about what products you like, what issues I should explore, and what treatments you want to see an ex-tomboy try out. Because I will be doing this like I do everything else: research (read what the experts say), experiment (flub my klutzy ass through beauty procedures), analyze (criticize myself), and write (about my imperfect mess of a life trying to not be a tomboy).

So come check me out next week, when I start writing over there once a week. Wish me luck...this is more nerve wracking that guest blogging for McMommy.