sometimes i don't even recognize myself in the mirror; when did i become a woman? i spent a while staring in the dim light of the afternoon today, thinking of middleschool and frizzy hair and braces and long, lonesome summers. long, lonesome recesses and lunches and softball practices, awkward sleepovers, empty birthday parties, and a book my mom gave me at some point in the low-self-esteem arc. i wore my leather pants to the coffeeshop the other night, and one of the baristas came into the back where i was reading to officially thank me for it from the staff. these are things i never dreamt of in middle school - even in highschool, really - when i held my breath through tunnels and wished for someone who liked me just the way i was. and it's funny, because i'm shy, still, and awkward and gangly, and i often feel like i have too many elbows and not enough words. today i drifted in between the conversation and my book, but mostly in the book, the way i have all my life whenever there's a book in my hand. it was dorky and antisocial in middleschool - evidently it's intellectual and charming today. i wonder if i've changed, or just the package. in the past few years i grew into my legs and my teeth got straightened and somewhere along the line i started walking the way i walk; my hair is still frizzy, but i've learned to wear it. so is it only okay to be dorky and antisocial if you look good in leather pants? half the time i'm sure i'm about to be found out, that i'll stay in conversation a little too long and reveal that i'm a gawky, nerdy girl who's not so good at those sports which require autonomous movement, that i'm not really even all that smart, i just read fast. like it's all an elaborate, unintentional ruse and the leather pants just the final touch in some part i get to keep playing as long as i can keep it up. (but he sees through me, so i know i'm real)