Saturday, December 5, 2009

My Awkward Phase

Every girl on the planet knows about this.
That adolescent period in their life, during the transition between childhood & adulthood,
where they felt (and sometimes looked) like the ugly duckling instead of the swan.
My awkward phase lasted about 17 years.

No, wait, how old am I?
Let's say it started when I was 12, so *removes shoes for counting* I'm !@# years old now,
subtract that time in my 30's when I was a fox.
*count count count*

That means my awkward phase lasted for more years than BS has been alive,
and, I think, continues to this day.

Don't believe me?
Let me offer the following evidence.

When we were young, my mother took slides.
Hundreds of slides.
And I recently purchased a scanner to transfer them to digital files.

We have had great fun seeing all those old pictures again,
but they pointed out a stark fact to me.
The women in my family are lovely.
My mother & my 2 sisters came from the sparkling waters of the gene pool.

My beautiful mother


My beautiful oldest sister Nana


My beautiful middle sister Sista G


And, uh . . .





. . . me . . .








I had every plague of young girlhood:
  • curly red hair (frizz-head, stuck-your-finger-in-a-socket, carrot-top) - ✓
  • freckles (hey - did you stand behind a cow when it farted?) - ✓
  • horn-rimmed glasses, the only kind available at the time (four-eyes) - ✓
  • braces on my teeth (metal-mouth, tin-grin) - ✓
(that cow fart comment was from my sister's boyfriend, now brother-in-law)

Sigh.

My mother will hate this.
She has to think I was beautiful. She's my mother.
It's in the handbook.

My sisters will hate this
because I didn't show you their awkward phases.
Although they will smile a little when they look at their pictures
and show them to their friends, saying "Look! That's me!"

But, pictures don't lie, ya know?
I'm just sayin'.

6 comments:

Rosie Hawthorne said...

Pictures lie all the time. I've torn up many.

And Mr. Hawthorne's favorite saying to me is, "Are you gonna believe me? Or your lyin' eyes!"

nana said...

Now hey Rootie!!!!
I have pictures of you (past that adolescent phase) when you looked just beautiful! (of course, since we're still in the single-wide and everything is packed up and I can't find it yet - I can't pull it out and scan them - although Danny knows how to do do that, and we will when we can- check Beema's scrapbook, there are many in there!) don't put yourself down! pictures of me now don't look anything like me a long time ago! You're my beautiful baby sister! Remember Baby Sally? Baby Sally wouldn't have made the books if she wasn't pretty!
Nana

nana said...

I don't know why this stupid thing posted my comment 3 times when I only wrote it once!!!! Technology is evil!!! Nana

Anonymous said...

I think you're only showing the "mild" awkward pictures. ;-)
I think we all have plenty worse than you showed. I don't remember you as awkward.
RAD

Kathy said...

Well, thanks to Nana & RAD for their kind comments. Believe me, I have lots of pictures of my sisters in their awkward phases too. Between the 3 of us, it was scary for awhile.

Sista G said...

Hey, Rootie, you big goofball! I guess when I'm there at Christmas, I'll have to take the beautimous pictures of you in the purple outfit, you and BS in front of the fireplace, and you at your wedding, and scan them all in to post on your blog!! I can also get hold of some of the really dorky ones of Nana and me in our many "awkward" phases.

So, kwazy wabbit - no more of this foolishness - "you ought to just quit on that now" (pop quiz - what movie??).

Love you,

Sista G - about 35 years after that picture!