Some air freshener in the

Some air freshener in the bathroom at work smells exactly like a perfume I used to wear in 6th grade. Exclamation? Malibu Musk? I wonder now who exactly I was trying to attract with perfume. That is, who I was trying to attract by adding perfume to the bike shorts, cat sweatshirt, watermelon earring ensemble that I was already rocking.

My parents were always very lenient about what I was allowed to wear or how I chose to wear (perm) my hair. This is perhaps because I was in the cat sweatshirt area and not the ripped leather and black eyeliner area (I did get in trouble once for dying blue a small braid under my hair), but nonetheless I wish my parents had been more proactive in the fashion category. I once mentioned something like this to my mom—perhaps while browsing pictures of myself in hot pink spandex—and she snorted something like, “Yeah right, would you have listened to anything I said about what to wear?” which is a valid point. Would I have?

There were definite cool kid trends that my parents’ disinterest allowed me to explore (Esleep pajamas, round John Lennon glasses, Blossom hats…ug, this is seriously depressing me), but what about all the in between times? The times when I was simply just wearing what was in my drawer because it had been there since 5th grade and I continued to wear? I guess I imagine this scenario where my mom would have told me that, no, perms are never a good idea. She would have taken me to a salon and they would have given me a flattering haircut. We would have gone shopping and she would have bought me clothes that didn’t have animals on them. She would have picked all the blue eye shadow out of my makeup caboodle and told me why I should never, short of a costume party, be sporting Smurf blue eye makeup. In this scenario, I am saved the self-conscious torture of wondering how I measure up to everyone, and I am simply confident that I look good and I wouldn’t have to worry about it so much any more.

I also wonder if my mom is right, if you can ever, as an adolescent trying desperately to distance yourself from your parents while simultaneously forging an identity for yourself, bring yourself to listen to any advice your mother is giving you on fashion. But weren’t there those girls? The cool ones with enviable clothes and immaculate hair and makeup who weren’t consumed with self-consciousness?

There is also the undeniable fact that the sheer awkwardness of this time in my life absolutely shaped me into an empathetic person, one who learned that not all of life’s problems are answered by pegged jeans and perfectly styled bangs.

One of my oldest and best friends from middle school, one who swears the first thing I said to him was “I like cats!”, and who through some miracle remained my friend all through those unwieldy years, all through high school, all through all school, actually, and into now, just welcomed his second baby girl into the world. If he can navigate their adolescence with even a fraction of the grace with which he navigated ours, I think they’ll turn out great, hypercolor shirt or no.

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