Woof

There have been a recent combination of things that have forced me to take a look at why the heck I am so neurotic and self-conscious. Between dating someone who is constantly becoming frustrated with my insecurities, and putting all my thoughts and stories out to the world through this blog, I've questioned what went wrong inside of my head. Really, why am I like this?

Then I went through old photos. And remembered.

Dear god in heaven, what WAS I? There were about three different stages of terrible-ness, let me take you through them.

First, I was a girl. And by that I mean I wore feminine clothes. But I was chubby. Chubbier than I cared to remember actually, and chubbier than I think my poor little self was fully aware of back then. I say this because, according to my mother, there were numerous mornings before school where she had to send me back to my bedroom to change into something different. Like, the morning that I came out in spandex shorts, a sports bra, and a fishnet top over it, turned sideways to look at myself in the mirror and said outloud, "this looks pretty good!". Not sure where she was on another particular morning, but somehow in 4th grade I slipped out of house in a leotard and jeans. ...Who does that, you ask? That just happened to be one of
4th-grade-Lani's favorite outfits.

Then all of a sudden I grew about an entire 12 inches, and became a little thinner. But I was still overweight, and my height and weight combined were too much for me to get over. So, I turned into a boy. Except, I wasn't the cool kind of tomboy. I was still shy around boys, got nervous playing sports when any guys were around and couldn't really pull off the 'sporty' look I was going for. Instead of hiding what was embarrassed of, my unstylish baggy man clothes just made me look that much bigger. Especially since I had the same size boobs as I do now (...but back then, they were flattened with a sports bra every day). This was also around the same time that I refused to wear my hair down, because that was embarrassing? So instaed of long flowing hair, it was pulled back into a TIGHT frizzy ponytail with a curly long tail. And dangly earrings, because after all, I was still a girl. So I'm pretty sure I don't have to explicitly state this but, boys were not interested.

And then one day, my mother begged me to let her take me to Rave, the trashiest clothing store maybe ever. But back then it was intimidating, because I hadn't been in a girl's clothing store for 4 years. So we finally picked out 2 shirts that didn't go past my butt, and two pairs of wideleg pants before I had a mini anxiety attack and had to leave the store. So I changed my look a little, but I was still a giant, had braces, and didn't know how to make good eye contact with boys.

Then in 11th grade when I dressed almost normal, learned how to straigten my hair, and wear makeuup, I realized how easy it was to get drunk and makeout, and that surely brings the confidence level up. And now, here I am.

Pics to follow...