It almost didn’t feel real. I couldn’t believe the day had finally come, I had waited so long. Standing there on the lawn of NRG Stadium, shimmering from head to toe, I had never felt more confident. The small metal circles that made up my top were a nice, cool, contrast to the late afternoon sun beating down on us. I should have known better than to wear anything other than shorts in late April in Texas, but my outfit wouldn’t have felt complete without my glittering fishnet tights. The pink diamonds on my eyes were a last-minute touch that almost felt over-the-top, but this sparkly girl isn’t someone I get to be very often.
“It’s like a Swiftie Met Gala,” my sister said, as we made our way up the endless stairs to find our seats. We finally made our way to our section, where we had a view of the entire stadium. It was steadily filling up, people pouring in from all sides, buzzing with excitement for the evening ahead of us. Looking out over a sea of sparkles and feathers, I saw thousands of other girls that looked just like me–bejeweled.
I have not always been confident in expressing the most girly version of myself. Not to say that I have ever been ashamed of my girlhood or femininity, but there have been times in my life where I felt inclined to suppress that part of me.
When I was a little girl, I was as girly as they come. My bedroom walls were painted a pale shade
of pink and I had more stuffed animals than I knew what to do with. I loved to dress up and I hated sports. In fact, when I was four, my parents signed me up for a children’s recreational soccer league in our town and my dad was the coach. They bought me a little sparkly pink soccer ball and matching pink knee pads. To this day, they will never let me forget that all I did during those Saturday morning soccer games was pick flowers in the field and cry if the action got too close.
Around the time I started fourth grade, my best friend, Makenzie, and I were obsessed with the city of Paris. We'd dress up in matching sparkly purple dresses from Justice and talk about growing up and traveling to see the Eiffel Tower. One day, I had been out at Wrightsville Beach, near our home in North Carolina. Makenzie’s uncle was teaching us how to surf. We packed up the car, salty and sunburned, and headed back towards home after a long morning. After a thirty-minute car ride, we pulled up in front of my house where my parents were standing on the front porch. Excitedly, they told me they had something to show me. My dad held open the front door for us and said “Close your eyes.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, nervous and excited, I let them lead me through the house. I heard a squeak that I knew meant my bedroom door had been opened. “Okay, you can open them,” my mom said. I opened my eyes to see my bedroom in front of me, fully redecorated, almost unrecognizable. My walls were still that pale shade of pink I knew and loved, but everything was
different. My bed had been painted, turning the faded brown wood into a bright, fresh white. My bedspread was now hot pink and black and white, with brand new throw pillows and blankets. My desk had a fashion mannequin, about a foot tall wearing a sparkly pink tutu, sitting on it. They even gave me a small TV. I was ecstatic about my new room. I felt so grown up, but still very much that girly girl from my childhood.
Somewhere along the way, over the next few years, I let that sparkle inside of me go dull. I moved halfway across the country, to the middle of Louisiana, where I had to make new friends. The transition was hard for me, being an 11 year old girl in a new state. I wanted to cling to the things that felt like home. To me, this meant holding on to the things that I thought made me unique and kept me connected to my roots back home. I decided I would make these things a defining trait about myself–I was a beach girl. My “favorite color” became blue, I hung a surfboard in my room, I painted my walls yellow, I packed all the pink, sparkly things away. In my mind, these two parts of myself could not coexist.
Ten years later, I was sitting in the dark theater with a friend to my left and my boyfriend to my right. My friend had gotten there early to make sure we could have three seats together, since the movie theaters had been packed for a week now. It was my second time seeing Barbie, so I thought I knew what to expect. Some silly scenes, good music, and a strong message. However, what I was not expecting was to be moved in the way that I was.
During a particularly moving scene, Ruth, the inventor of Barbie, says “We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they’ve come.” While Ruth was speaking, my eyes fell on a mother a few rows ahead of me pulling her young daughter into her lap and hugging her tightly. This made me think of my own mother and the times she has inspired me to be a better woman, but also to appreciate the kind of woman I am. She, for as long as I can remember, has always been unapologetically herself. I strive to be like her in every aspect of my life. She has always worked tirelessly to provide the life I have and has always done so with a smile on her face. My mom’s personality sparkles like no other, and she has been an inspiration to me.
I realized that night that I am not my favorite color. I am not my favorite pink dress. I am not the glitter I wear on my face at a concert, but all of these things are part of who I am. But I am more. I am proud to be the woman I am.
That night in April, when I was at Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, I was surrounded by women and girls all dressed to the nines. Decked head to toe in sparkles and feathers, everyone was shimmering in accordance with an unspoken dress code unlike one for any event I had heard of. Even at music festivals, where out-of-the-box dress is the norm, I had not seen the styles and variety I was seeing in front of me. The Eras Tour was one of many circumstances in 2023 where women and girls all over the world were encouraged and empowered to express themselves and be proud of their culture as sparkling women who shine no matter what they are wearing, and I was
one of them.
