Growing up, I wanted to dress up as desirable. I wanted to trade in my straight eyelashes for curled ones and change my brown eyes to blue. I wanted to grow four inches in height and lose two around my waist. I yearned for wavy hair that framed my face instead of the stick-straight hair I was given. My eyes were wide enough to see, but not wide enough to be seen. I would have traded them in an instant. When I walked into a room, I wanted people to turn their heads to look at me. I wanted to hear it, the rustling of hair against shirt collars. I wanted the air to shift around me so that the music sounded a little clearer and the drinks tasted a little sweeter. All of this yearning and shapeshifting to be liked by boys. Boys who looked straight through me to get a better glimpse of my friends. Boys who made racist remarks about me as a joke, and friends who let it happen. I knew that the costume I wanted could never be bought online. In a world full of tricks, that was the biggest one of them all.
When Halloween rolled around, I was reminded that even on a day where anything was possible, I would never be able to be the one thing I really wanted: an equal. While I didn’t love the holiday, I knew an opportunity when I saw one. Without its quality of childlike wonder, it was a chance to flip expectations on their head. It was the one day a year when the impossible was possible. A nice girl could be a witch and a shy girl could be noticed.
When I fell in love, things began to change. At last, I had caught the feeling I spent my whole life pursuing. The fog of self-loathing cleared, and I looked around, assessing the damage. I was alive, and other than 22 years of mental turmoil, remained mostly intact. I discovered that what made me undesirable was my environment, not me. And I discovered that the feeling I had when I looked at a pretty girl, the one I had almost convinced myself wasn’t real, was, in fact, the thing I had been wanting all along. With this newfound knowledge, I could start over as someone new, someone who dressed up as the character from their favorite childhood movie, for no reason other than for themselves. How strange and wonderful it was to put me first!
Now, Halloween has taken on a new meaning. I no longer have to choose between pleasing others and pleasing myself, because the only person I care about is already next to me, holding my hand. Embracing my queerness helped me to accept many things, some more obvious than others, but I never imagined that a holiday that used to symbolize conformity could return to one of storybook characters and laughter.
The Queerest 