Ava Reid

I’m loving summer this year, but I can’t wait until it feels like this again.

I didn’t lose hope, I just forgot where I put it.

like i was a tomboy right out the womb and my mother was openly resentful of how difficult it was to get me to be feminine and made comments about how she “wanted a daughter but got a weird son” i was forced to wear pretty skirts and dresses meanwhile all i wanted was to look at dinosaurs and talk about the titanic. so when i hit middle school i resented femininity. then i got tumblr and was told by the other 12-15 year olds that i was actually a misogynist for feeling disillusioned with femininity, so until i was around 19 i threw myself into being as feminine as i possibly could, i wore glam makeup every single day, tiny skirts and dresses, heels when i could (i have a bone spur in my ankle that makes them especially hard for me) and i was fucking miserable! it was a mask! none of that was me, but i was so fucking popular and well liked and showered with attention and compliments. when i got to my 20’s i realized that none of that even does anything for you. it’s just confidence boosting but only in the short term, none of it is about YOU, its about how well you performed. i’m still proud of my skills in makeup and fashion and hairstyling but now i have confidence that comes from the knowledge that im a smart, funny, and genuinely good person. my looks have almost nothing to do with how much i love myself. i very much struggle still with accepting my appearance without changing it, in large part because the makeup and dress-up did nothing but damage to my perception of my appearance. i’m not talking about this stuff from the perspective of some bitter bitch who genuinely has internalized misogyny issues, i’m saying this as someone who was you once. i was a hyperfeminine girl for 9 years of my 25 years on earth. i’m leveling with you and telling you to just Think about it, try different things, don’t let attention and social pressure make you betray your true sense of self. don’t lie to yourself about it. you’re a human being not a piece of decor designed to be viewed and judged

i think we should extend a little more grace to people who were indoctrinated who have realized their way of thinking is wrong/harmful/problematic and are now doing the work to unlearn large portions of their belief system