To Be Young and Innocent…

… it’s been quite a while since those days, huh?

One of my friends on FaceBook sent me an invitation to an event where everyone changes their profile picture to a picture of themselves at a younger age… “throwback photos”, he had called it. What the heck, I’ll do it. I’ve already uploaded some pretty entertaining (and some painfully awkward) throwbacks of my own. So I selected a gem of a school picture: kindergarten. From my loud daisy printed blouse to my mom’s perfect side-swept pinning of my hair with a HUGE yellow bow, I sure liked to smile regardless of what Mama Rara put me in.

After changing my picture, I started checking out other people’s throwback pictures. I was dumbfounded. It’s so incredibly easy to tell who changed physically, who stayed exactly the same, and who looks absolutely nothing like their cute 90’s counterpart. The scariest part is the latter, and not the former. I’m so glad that I at least somewhat resemble my 6 year old self. I know so many people who over the years have decided that they need to pile on the make-up, or dye their hair until it resembles a doormat, or take so many workout enhancers that their arms look like they could deflate at the mere sight of a pushpin. I’ll be the very first to admit, I have always been a bigger girl than most. But back then, I was also athletic and active, and hey, I had cute little dimples so if all else failed, I had that going for me too.

Sure, I’ve had my fair share of… interesting style choices, and gone through my weight struggles. Surgery and complications stemming from the first ACL injury have sidelined me for about 4 years, so the whole exercise thing was very limited, and that 5k I promised myself I would run during my senior year of high school? Veryyyy risky, and veryyyyy not completed (Don’t worry, it’s on my to-do list this time around). Now, 14 years later, I am SO glad that I’m still the same me. I haven’t made any drastic changes to my appearance that would lead my kindergarten classmates to not recognize me, and, come on…. how many 20 year old women are there floating out there who have never dyed their hair? I’ll tell ya: not many. I’ve got one piercing in each ear, and no tattoos. Another rarity. Natural beauty and the contentment with how one looks from birth (or at least close to it) is SO rare these days. How sad is that?!

Viva La Naturale! Kindergarten Danielly would be proud. Either that, or she wouldn’t understand what that means.

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