Its official I'm getting old! Yesterday morning my husband was staring at me and I asked him why. "Oh, just marveling at how you look more like a woman since we got married" was the response. He's been saying things like that a lot lately... and he isn't the only one. My friends and family have also noticed it. Just the other day someone looked at me and said " Munya has really brought out the woman in you". Well I really do hate to admit it but they are right. I am not the same person I was a few years ago. Sometimes when I pass by a mirror i have to look twice just to make sure its really me.
I am an only girl in my family and growing up I was a tom-boy of sorts. Aside from my school uniform I had no dresses and I hardly ever wore skirts- unless they were super short... I was always hanging with the boys and at some point I actually thought I was one of them. When I was in primary school I almost always had my hair cut very short-much to my mother's disappointment. She wanted to have a little girl that she could dress up in pretty dresses and in whose hair she could put colorful ribbons. I remember tagging along to the barber with dad after promising her that I was just going to watch and coming back with a clean shaven head. Poor woman, she would throw a fit but well that didn't help her cause much. She even bought me dolls until she realised that we used to remove their heads and use them as soccer balls. I got into a single-sex boarding school when I was thirteen and she was elated, I suppose she hoped if I was surrounded by other girls I would eventually turn into one and come home to wear all those dresses that were gathering dust in my wardrobe. But even there I somehow found males to make friends with.
By the time I turned sixteen I had no skirts or dresses in my wardrobe and when my dad died I had nothing to wear at the funeral. I had to make do with a wrap over a tracksuit bottom. After this I went out of my way to buy a skirt. I was long and tight and I sooo hated it.
I started going to a co-ed school for A'level and that's when any progress i had made in getting in touch with my feminine side went straight out the window. There were lots of boys to hang out with there LOL. I made lots of friends and was often the only girl in a group of guys talking cars sports and girls, yes girls. most of them hoped to get an insight on how the female brain works but they were barking up the wrong tree. Sometimes I would go out for tournaments with the boys' sports teams and I'd be the only female on the bus. Loudly singing along to the songs - obscenities and all. I was always clad in jeans or tracksuit bottoms and tee, the baggier the clothes were the better. I tried my damnedest to hide all my female physical features. and I would just cut my hair on a whim. I still do. By now you should have an idea of what i looked like. I also did my best to act as boyish as possible. In fact the very first time I spoke to my husband he saw me jump over a gate (but that's a story for another day) .
I really cant say when exactly things changed and that's why I'm calling it evolution. It could have been that I loved wearing a dress on my wedding day I decided to go buy more or maybe child birth awakened the woman in me- who knows. All I know is I'm being transformed into this being that I know not. Everything from my wardrobe to my lifestyle has changed. I am the proud owner of more than five skirts, three dresses and two pairs of high heeled shoes. My older brother has a field day every time he sees me in a dress and I am yet to adapt to that sight as well. I have also since started wearing make- up and I'm becoming quite the expert at doing up my own face. I've even done a bit of volunteer modeling and entered a beauty contest. I remember I had my eyebrows trimmed & shaped for the first time on my wedding day. My husband looked at me on our honeymoon and proclaimed that he liked the look and all but begged me to keep it so i did.
On the inside I have realised that I'm becoming more and more emotional and that tears are more readily available than they use to be. I'm also a bit more tolerant of others and less impatient with myself. I've stopped hating my body and I have fully accepted that I am a woman. A woman who still likes to cut her hair once in a while. (I've decided to go natural and get dreadlocks and will try my best to grow my hair for the next ten years ). I'm not super girly or anything like that but I'm far more feminine than I have ever been. I'm not trying to prove myself and I've stopped competing with the boys. I can safely say i enjoy being the fairer sex and having someone else be strong for me every once in a while. I'm discovering new things about myself on a regular basis. I'm starting to hate pink a lot less but blue will always be my favorite colour. I have come to the point where I'm OK using words like beautiful to describe myself. I feel comfortable in the company of other women though my gossip skills still need a bit of work... yes I went there... LOL
The little boy in me will always be there but I'm really glad that the WOMAN that I'm becoming will always be around to keep him in check. I know this is just the beginning and I know I'm gonna keep surprising myself and those around me. Who knows maybe one day I'll be able to wear a skirt more than thrice a week and not feel awkward. I may even start making female friends. Lets watch this space together why don't we?
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