The female experience

By: Victoria Diaz.

I never felt ugly but I never felt pretty either. A boy never told me I was pretty therefore I can’t be, because, when you are a woman you only have any sort of value if a man says it. But my friends told me I was pretty, therefore I can’t be ugly. They are the most beautiful and kindest souls on this planet and they wouldn’t lie to me, therefore I must be pretty. 

One thing I was called though, was weird and I hated it. When I was a kid I tried to kill the weird girl. To erase her existence, to pretend she didn’t exist. That she could be normal, adapt to the world, to the people she was around. Create a character for every single person she meets so they’ll never get to know her and if they didn’t know her they’ll never learn she was the weird girl. And for a long time, I did well. I was perfect, nobody could realise that it was all an act, a counterfeit, a pretend, a fiction. They couldn’t have guessed even if they tried. I was that good and then, one day, I shut off. I didn’t want to leave my house, I was so tired. I couldn’t exist, everything was so heavy and horrible so I just stayed inside my house where I could be me or whoever that was. 

And then, as I grew older, I ended up liking her. The weird girl. She wasn’t as bad as I thought, she was nice… I discovered that thanks to her I liked literature and cinema so much that I wanted to dedicate my life to them. Thanks to the weird girl I am an artist (or at least trying to be). Thanks to the weird girl I got my best friend of 20 years. Thanks to the weird girl I learned how to dress. Thanks to the weird girl I’m writing. Thanks to the weird girl I’m acting. Thanks to the weird girl I realized I am pretty. 

To all the weird girls out there, don’t worry you’ll be fine. You will learn to love your creative side, you will learn to love yourself and one day and you’ll find someone who loves you back (I’m still waiting but I do live for the hope of it all)

In the end, I’m learning to like myself and I will never harm the weird girl again. I do hope she can forgive me.