I have always felt slightly envious of girls that are comfortable wearing dresses everyday and matching outfits with cute shoes. Their nails and hair done impeccably. I get by with owning a handbag dog who has a bling collar. My childhood pink bedroom unchanged as an adult with posters of cute animals, stuffed toys, dolls and fairies scattered about the place.
I have a rule for myself that once year... at least... I must wear a dress. For 2012 I've already obeyed that rule and wore a white dress with a sparkly, silver trim and sparkly, silver peep-toe ballet flats, carrying a glass-beaded clutch to a dinner party. Unlike my mother would, no one made a fuss but did comment that they were surprised to see me in a dress all the same.
I think what may have sparked my anti-girliness was of course... my mother. I don't mean to sound like I am running her down but she really does misunderstand me at times. Whilst recovering from two operations at my Nanna's when I was 10, my mother visited an op-shop (opportunity shop or rag trade shop). When I went up to visit her and Nanna during the school holidays she excitedly told me that she had bought something for me. "When I saw it I straight away thought of you". She pulled it out of a bag and revealed it. A fluorescent pink, layered, white polka-dotted skirt. When she saw it she thought of something she'd like me to wear but not something that I actually would. The skirt horrified me and I told her so. She was devastated. She had raised me in dresses and pig tails. A little girl that older women would think was cute. By the time I was 5 years old I was in scruffy clothes and head to toe with dirt. And it's stayed that way to this day. I'm still scruffy. Holes in my workshirts and rips in my jeans. I come out of the cattle yards looking like I've rolled around in the dirt but there's a satisfaction to it. A hard days work could be seen and felt and there was nothing better than watching all the dust wash off in the shower at the end of the day. I don't get that sitting behind a desk answering phones.
Yet there's still that little need in me that needs to glam up and feel feminine. A ball was held on the weekend and I spent Friday and Saturday tossing up whether I wanted to go or not. If certain friends were going to go I had one condition for myself about going. I had to be the Belle of the Ball. I wanted a certain look, certain hair, certain dress. I didn't end up going. The cost of being glam and girly would hurt the bank account way too much. It was a whimsical notion left to sit with the others at the back of my brain... neglected.
I wear the odd pink workshirt to work and get regular comments from people who are shocked to see that it's a girl that has just jumped out of the concrete truck. People blown away that me, as a girl and a small one at that, does the job that I do. Shock sometimes is followed by "So you're truck is an auto then?" Certainly not. It's a synchro gearbox by the way. When coming to town I wasn't interested in a retail or admin job. My first cold calls were to a roadworks business and the local quarry. Despite my mild discontent with my job I couldn't imagine myself in any other here in town and to that extent I don't think I will ever be girl enough.
G.NA's "Top Girl" video
http://youtu.be/t5wO8ejwVRI
http://www.sbs.com.au/chinese/program/popasia/?siteLanguage=en_AU
http://hellogiggles.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment