By When I was in third grade, I asked my friend Maddie if I was the girliest girl she knew. “Well, sure,” she said. “But sometimes you’re…cool.” I was furious.
I loved Hello Kitty and wore pink skirts and said “sorry” a lot. I was a girly girl. But over time, cool girl became my new mold.
By middle school I was the girl who preferred tree-climbing to ballet, classic rock to boy bands, chilling with the guys to gossiping with the girls…and would tell you about it any chance she got.
The role fit me like a glove, so long as I shaved off certain parts of myself. I really did love tree-climbing—but secretly, I was also dying to hear tell me "What Makes You Beautiful."“Fat,” “loud,” “opinionated”—by this point in my life I’d heard a thousand.
Read more on glamour.com