I thought I really needed...

I thought I really needed to be like everyone else. I couldn't be myself--I mean, how unoriginal! Whether it was layers of black eyeliner dripping from bright blue eyelids, or pleading with my mother to let me chemically straighten my hair and highlight it--I wanted to do what everyone else was doing. It's strange as I look back--I was so afraid of what people thought, that I DIDN'T think about what I was doing. For example-does three colors of eyeshadow (blue, green, and brown) really look nice? (or like a nice bruise!) Does slimy slicked down curls really accomplish the straight and smooth trend? Was it worth the arguments about pants that "fit" only to be confronted in dress check?
I thought that once I looked, acted, and thought like everyone else I would be happy. I hurt my friends and lost even more confidence in the fact that I was a child of God with no need to fear men.
I think I finally realized my foolishness when I changed my life's priorities. I determined to be more "obsessed" with my spiritual life than with what I looked and felt like. As a result, I began watching different people, and realized that to "impress" them, all I had to do was be natural. Instead of spending hours in front of the mirror with a straightening iron, rehearsing what I would say to so-and-so, flipping my hair, and finding the right laugh; I started taking suggestions from those who knew more than me, and re-evaluating my desires. Instead undergoing mental stress and emotional trauma (Ah-Junior high years!) over the fact that I wasn't the most popular and beautiful, I learned to laugh at myself, and made it my goal to make others comfortable around me--so that they could learn (as I did) that they don't need to be like everyone else.