I'm Not a Princess

I was a tomboy. I was a mud-pie-making, tree-climbing, monkey-bar swinging fiend. I liked to make rivers in the sand and play wild mustangs with my Briar horses.

"She" was a princess. She was a doll-dressing, hopscotch jumping, jack tossing fool. She liked to make cookies out of play dough and have tea parties with her Barbie. I wanted no part of her games. I found them boring and unimaginative.

I wasn't a "typical" girl. I didn't enjoy playing the games that my sister played. I didn't like tea-parties or skip-rope. I didn't like hopscotch or picking up jacks. I was perfectly content to glide back and forth on the swing while composing songs about far away lands where everything was made of rubber and one could bounce to where ever one needed to go.

I didn't enjoy playing with the kids my sister played with and I could tell they felt the same. I was the four-eyed fat girl who sang weird songs and read all the time. I could tell they would rather play with my sister who was cute and bubbly and didn't have a pair of giant lime green glasses perched on her nose.

I was unprepared for my adolescence. I began to realize that what I did as a child was not accepted and that my persecution would continue if I persisted in my unique ways. It became harder to ignore the cruel remarks made about my weight. "Hey Hogden, taken any mud baths lately?" My glasses became a burden. What gave me sight caused others to be blind. No longer were my days carefree, so I created a sanctuary in my room. There I would spend my time reading and wishing I could be anybody but who I was. Occasionally, I would venture out of my hole, but it was only to be pushed back down by the taunting realities that I would never be a cheerleader or a member of the student council. That I would never be invited to a slumber party or asked out by the cutest guy in school: That I would never be popular like my sister.

The summer of my fourteenth year my sister and I were sent to live with our older sister, Kaye, in Pennsylvania. My expectations were grand! Our older sister had Arabian horses and I could go riding whenever I wanted. My childhood fantasy to play wild mustangs was coming true. Kaye also knew many kids my age and said she would introduce them to me. Here was my chance to be accepted. All I had to do was act the "princess" like my sister but, in my enthusiasm, I forgot I didn't look the part.

The first few weeks of high-school were heavenly. When my classmates discovered I was from California I became an instant magnet. They enjoyed the fact that I was different, that I spoke with an accent and said things like: That is soooo rad, oh my god, totally and gag me with a spoon." My novelty eventually wore off and what drew them to me, at first, soon became a source of mockery. I couldn't hide the fact that I was fat, either, but I could eliminate the giant glasses that made me look like a frog; into the garbage they went. I found myself willing to do anything to fit in but hard as I tried, I couldn't force the charade and I couldn't pretend to be something I wasn't. I couldn't be the "princess" like my sister because I didn't like cheerleader and I didn't like going to the mall just to flirt with the guys. Hardly a day went by that I didn't hear some comment about how weird I was. The sad facts: I was a fat sci-fi buff who went around squinting at everybody, unlike my sister who was still the popular cheerleader that all the guys wanted to date.

Slowly, I realized, that what I felt about myself was what really counted. By throwing myself into what I enjoyed most; singing, writing and drawing, I started to accept my individuality and my peers began to respect me.

It was and is difficult, this fitting in, this sorting out of who I am from whom I pretend to be. Some mornings, I look into the mirror and wonder who I will be today. Will the person I've become be accepted? I pretend that fitting in doesn't concern me, that I'd grown past my adolescent needs; I want to fit it. I still want to be popular and pretty like my sister was in high school. Societies norms affect me and mould me each minute I breath. High school taught me how to be an actress, life has taught me reality.