This dress

I bought a red sundress over 3 years ago.  I rarely have occasion to get dressed up, but honestly it's just that I've never had the confidence to wear it.  I'm not really good at "being a girl."  I'd either gained too much weight or it was too dressy. I was trying to look too young. I didn't have jewelry, I didn't have shoes, I didn't have a shrug. I'm so good at excuses to stay small, unnoticed, serious.  I recently spent what is for me an extraordinary amount of time looking for the remainder of what would make a complete outfit, determined to wear it at some point this summer. 

A friend was celebrating her birthday tonight and six of us went out for dinner at an award-winning local restaurant.  I decided it was finally time to pull this get-up out of the closet.  I had to watch a video to learn how to tie the silly bow; took me 7 tries and 20 minutes to get it right! 

I felt beautiful when I left my house tonight.  Not confident inside like I was faking so well outside, but beautiful, carrying an inner smile as I walked through the parking lot into the restaurant.  Sometimes I just wonder if this isn't what normal, happy girls feel like.  I will ever and always feel that I don't belong to the world of women, but I'm really trying to believe it.

Dinner was wonderful, and my friends more so.  But as I rushed home to get ready for work, sadness tried to overtake me.  I didn't want to take off the "girl" and put on that man's uniform.  I didn't want to take off my pretty jewelry, or replace my nice makeup with my everyday boring face.

I just had to write about how amazing it was tonight to feel like a woman, like I had a beauty to offer the world.  How different this is from the daily routine of my life, where I live in either a uniform or workout clothes. Now that I'm learning to see myself this way, instead of always cautioning myself not to be too much or too self-important, someday I hope I get to look across the table at my very own someone, someone who sees me, someone who thinks I'm as beautiful as I'm learning to feel.