"You're gonna wear THAT?"

I would like to believe that the way I dress and style my hair isn't really my fault. How could it be, when my parents look like this?:

Clearly nobody was going to tell me not to leave the house just because I was wearing a cowgirl vest with a plaid skort or my eyebrows were hanging down over my eyes. Or maybe they realized how ridiculous I was, but preferred to let me express myself in whatever misconceptions of beauty I wanted to. Either way, thanks, mom and dad, for allowing me to be a free spirit, no matter how much of a freak everyone else thought I was. I try to just tell people my fashion faux pas are because I was homeschooled.

Yes, I was quite adorable. The overload of frills, lace, floral patterns, and buttons is probably a bit much for church, but this was my favorite "fancy dress." Once I drew a picture of a house in one of the folds of frills with an ink pen in the car, and that still didn't stop me from wearing it as frequently as I could. As you can tell by my curtsey, I was a little lady. A little lady with at-home straight-across-the-forehead bangs and curls that fell out an hour after they were created. I would've curled my hair twelve times a day to keep it curly if I'd been allowed to and known how, but I was stuck with stringy thin straight hair instead. Then I discovered if I braided it, it would stay wavy for longer:

That's me on the far left, the one who resembles Bozo. I saw myself more as a supermodel, but my self-deception did run pretty deep. Also, I'm cast off to the side of this group of kids because they were all jealous and intimidated by my beauty, not because I squinted my eyes when I smiled, used lemon-scented perfume that made my mom throw up, and wore white dresses with a slightly different shade of white jacket.

Apparently I enjoyed wearing all white. I'm not even sure where I got white jeans from, but I expertly paired them with a white shirt and a single braid that hung directly in my face. I'm pretty certain I ruined my vision by constantly having to peer through and around that braid. That, and I always read with a flashlight for hours at night.

This was just one of a thousand pairs of patterned tights I would rock underneath shorts. If you can't tell what that appealing design is, it's crayons and polka dots. I typically wore them with sandals so nobody would miss out on even an inch of my incredibly decorated legs. I look ridiculously young here but I was 11, and it was the day my best friend Ashtyn was moving to California. That baby is her little sister and we were obviously helping pack the U-Hauls and not getting in the way of the adults. I don't remember why I seem to be celebrating when my best friend was moving across the country, but you can tell I still loved her because I was wearing our friendship necklaces made out of wooden beads and twine.

Even when I entered my teen years and began public school, my style didn't improve any.

This is what I wore to the Cotillion Winter Ball. I searched for days for a jacket/shrug/thingie to wear with the dress because it was cold out and I didn't want to freeze. Apparently a knit poncho was supposed to keep me warm and make boys ask me to dance. I didn't do a single thing differently with my  hair and makeup that day, even though the winter ball was supposed to be a big deal. I guess I thought I looked so spectacular every other day of my life, it was impossible to raise the bar any higher. I spent most of the evening sitting and talking with some other girls about what all those boys were missing out on and how great our hair looked.

Another night at Cotillion, I suppose I was under the assumption that all pastel colors can be mixed and matched, and that greasy middle-parted ponytails were in style. Just to save this guy from ridicule, we did not date. He gave me rides because he lived near me and was friends with my older brother. He didn't like me romantically because I wore zip-up hoodies to fancy occasions and talked about things like potato chips and geraniums when I was awkward.

Even when I did manage to dress like a functioning member of society, I still suffered one major drawback. I wore the same dirty old pair of tennis shoes with almost every single outfit. It gained me some mad respect from my peers, because they could never pull off that sort of high fashion.

I attempted to fix my eyebrows several times, almost always with horrifying outcomes. I invested in this tiny razor that promised to sculpt eyebrows perfectly. When I got it in the mail, I rushed to my mirror, threw the instructions to the side, prepared to look like a glamorous Hollywood actress, and shaved off half of my eyebrow. I gaped it in shock and spent the next thirty minutes trying to at least make the other one match so it would seem like I'd done it on purpose. I kept my hair hanging in my face for weeks to hide my embarrassing mishap. Also I really liked to show off my gums and fold my upper lip back when I smiled; I thought it made me look exotic, like maybe a cannibal preparing to attack.

This was my eighth grade school picture. Up until now I have shown it to less than ten people because I like to forget how unfortunate-looking I've been in the past.

Please appreciate how attractive and well-dressed I am now that I've grown up and become slightly more socially adjusted.

Except if you come to my house without warning on any given day you will find me wearing leggings underneath patterned boxer shorts, a t-shirt covered in stains from a hair-dying incident, and my hair in pigtails.