Embracing the Cringe
A universal girlhood rite of passage is seeing pictures of yourself from 3,5,7 years ago and feeling a bit queasy in your stomach. Your first thought is: “Oh my god. Who was going to tell me I looked like that???” Your second thought is: “Who has seen this picture????” It’s terrifying to be a girl in a time of rapidly changing trends. Everything feels risky. Every choice feels judged.
Let me simplify it for you: the current aesthetic aspiration is effortless chic. Can’t be too effortless, though. Definitely not too chic. Last week, it was Scandinavian maximalist. Cheetah print is back. Everyone is wearing pajama pants. J. Crew was once classified as maternal and a bore. Now, it is the embodiment of everything an it girl could ever want. Even last year, if you were to ever tell me I now fantasize about owning colorful Adidas sneakers that closely resemble bowling shoes, I would not be able to cope. At all.
Continuing to chat about me (naturally), I constantly feel like I’m trying to evolve into the most polished version of myself; at least, look a bit better than the year before. At every point in my life, I have looked back at the previous year and so deeply criticized my entire being: my tops, my shoes, my pose, my nail color, my hair, my face. Everything. Knowing the way I operate, in a year’s time, I will cringe at what I’m wearing, writing, and thinking as I type this. In complete honesty, I have never had a problem with feeling the way I do. Reflecting as I expand, I need to take a step back and understand why I pick myself apart. Because of my hyperactive self-criticism, I can recognize that it will never matter just how much I think I’ve evolved; I am still evolving.
This revelation could be attributed to our incessant need to perform. I don’t mean getting on a stage. I mean always put on your best face, look the “sickest,” and become the most effortless cool girl version of yourself. With the way the world works, the bar you’re setting for yourself now will soon be at a completely different place and will be defined by completely different standards.
I believe these formative years are the perfect catalyst for finding who you are and who you’re not. I don’t know a single woman in their 20s who looks at pictures from years past and thinks, “God, I had such great taste.” That rarely happens. The blame for that should be placed on the shoulders of our unrealistic expectations. Our interests and opinions change ever so rapidly that it has resulted in only buying clothes that I can see myself wearing in five years. Elevated basics, per se.
What if we just gave ourselves more grace? What if we embraced how happy we were rocking that hideous snakeskin belt and smearing purple glitter across our eyelids? I thought I looked freaking awesome and that color made my eyes pop!!! Imagine how hurt our 18-year-old selves would feel if they heard us say the things we mutter about them. Imagine how happy they would be to see who we are now. It doesn’t matter how we currently feel about our past selves. It matters how happy we were in those moments. People change and so does life. Don’t let your fear of the future stand in the way of blissful currents.