This evening, I saw a commercial on TV. There were two little girls in the scene, sitting and coloring, and talking with their grandfather. But what struck me is how they were dressed. Each had on little pink frilly dresses, and tiaras. Clearly, (hopefully), this is not how they dressed in their normal go-abouts. But they were playing princess.
I see this frequently on commercials.
I have seen this in several other places too. At restaurants, or on vacation. Or more frequently, on Facebook and such, where friends’ kids and grandkids dress up in their cute little dresses and tiaras. Cute as can be really.
I think it is grand, in so many ways.
But it made me reflect. And, I scanned through my past. I can pretty much assure you, I have never worn a tiara, or a pink dress, for that matter. I think if I had wanted to, as a kid, I may have been afforded to. Maybe. (Okay, maybe not the princess crown, but I bet Mom would have made a pink dress for me.)
But. On the contrary, I can remember feeling right at home in blue jeans and a sweatshirt. Hold the phone. Stop the presses. Call the cops.
Okay, okay. So you may have guessed this about me.
I can remember, not liking the feeling of being “dressed up.” In fact, as soon as we got home from church, I raced up to my room and put on my normal skivvies. Jeans. Sweatshirt. Tom-boy girl.
When I was pretty young, we were playing outside on a hot summer’s day. My brothers, and the neighborhood boys mostly ran the streets without their shirts on. It was hot.
Well, it made perfect sense to me. So off came my t-shirt. I am not sure how long I ran around without my shirt. My bigger sister Julie was right there with me on this one too. I think …. as I recall…. it was Marylin Monroe, our neighbor, who may have spotted us and alerted Mom. Hence, game over.
I played with G.I. Joes mostly. On occasion there were the Sea Monkeys and the Sock Monkeys. I had friends who had Barbie Dolls, but they didn’t seem to do much, except for change clothes, and brush their hair. G.I. Joes had tents, and rafts, and weapons, and tools. Helicopters, and Jeeps, even. There was a LOT to be done with the G.I. Joes. We were always saving the world.
I guess I just enjoyed playing differently than most other girls my age. Maybe we all do. I had one brother who was a motor-head, and another one who liked to bake. Oh wait. They still do.
Which leads me to this. There are certain things about our inner-selves that are just there… comfortably. It is the essence of who we are. It is what feels best to us. Deep inside, we know where and how, we like to be.
Beautiful, isn’t it? How this works. How natural it is for you, and you, and me too. How could anyone expect us to deny who we are?
So with that, perhaps it is best that we should be accepting of others’ differences. It is what we are… just like I am me… and you are you. Sometimes, it is apparent, these qualities are sewn right into our very being…just like the color of our hair, or the length of our feet.
There are so very many of us. Yet, we all are one. Connected. And we need each other. There must be acceptance, not denial. Building walls between us because of who we are… is just plain wrong.