She held the thin doll in her hands
again and saw how plain it had become through her eyes. Once, long ago now, she
had wanted so desperately to become that toy.
It had embodied beauty and grace to
her before she knew what those were, and she idolized it by craving its
accoutrements; the sparkling car, the elaborate house, the many varying outfits
for its many imagined occasions.
It had been the only friend to her
before she understood what friendship was and how fragile it could be.
She recalled how hard she had worked
to be the living image of the doll. She would spend hours dying her natural
brown hair into a platinum blonde, plastering her face with makeup and
squeezing into size-nothing clothes in every step toward becoming the flesh and
blood animation of this plastic and painted image of corporate-designed
perfection.
It was only when she realized her
friendships were as painted on as her makeup that she whiplashed to the
opposite end of the spectrum. In every attempt to rebel against her betraying
image of herself, she traded the doll for a toy soldier. Her hair went from
shining yellow to a black mohawk. Dresses were shredded and worn over tight
jeans, and the makeup stayed on, only adding layers of blacks and reds, the
princess giving way to the witch.
Where she lost friendship by not
doing enough of one thing, she discarded possible friendships by being too much
of the opposite. She became lost in who she had become by running from who she
used to desire becoming.
Solitary anger had turned the car
beside the dream house to the dragon scaling the castle, and so did she finally
lose the fight for her individuality by letting others dictate how she saw
herself. The winter had come over her heart and devastated the summer she had
lost, and she only saw it as a happiness.
It was when her body made real
changes for her did she find out who she really was. With glasses she began to
see herself differently. When she got braces, they gave her pause to think
before she spoke. Holding the doll now, she looks back on who she had been with
a new happiness for who she had finally become.
She embraced her auburn hair and
kept the jeans and hairstyle. She returned to less and less makeup until it
meant nothing to her. She holds the doll now and lets the memories melt away as
she remembers why she had picked it up in the first place.
Sitting with pen and paper, she
finds the inspiration to write as she places the doll atop the tank, preparing
it to rescue the dragon from the castle.
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