You don't know this about me...but I was a very sassy kid.

A sassy, smart and funny little girl with a whole lot of style. I mean, A WHOLE LOT. Seven to ten year old me wore the crap out of some cute stuff.

I mean, check out the adorbs.

But then that girl became a pre-teen, and then, even worse...a teenager. (Oh, the horror.) For some girls, those teen years were the time that they became more themselves and blossomed into the young people they were supposed to be. For me, that was when I retreated back into myself. Sure, at home and with a select few, I was a fun-loving and "sweet" daughter and friend. But I wasn't sassy anymore. I started wearing jeans and tees pretty much every day. I let my hair do whatever it wanted or, as my mom always said, I liked to "scrape it off my face" into a ponytail. I did theater, but I was never myself: I only wanted to stand out when I was playing someone else.


I can't say any one reason why I became this way. I got picked on, sure, but it wasn't anything over the top. I had a hard time dealing with some things that were going on...but who didn't have a rough time? I can say with honestythat at that time in my life, I struggled with depression under the surface. The fake bravado I displayed to my parents and close friends was a facade. I felt a little like a crumbled cookie on the inside: still good, but in pieces. And my wardrobe was an outer expression of that inner crumbly feeling. I lacked the confidence to let myself be noticed.

So what happened to get you to this girl you see today?

Well, first this girl got a best friend.


Best friends are wonderful people, but they ca't MAKE you do anything. What my best friend did for me was to acknowledge the person I really was: sweet, sure; but also sarcastic, intelligent, fun and yes, very sassy. She didn't let me hide myself from her. I don't know if that was what she was trying to do, but that's exactly what she did. Because of her encouragement, I started to blossom. (That and an immense number of lectures she gave me about fashion sense).

Second, this girl started talking.