The Good Squeeze
Growing up, my life used to revolve around the idea of squeezing.
There are good squeezes and bad squeezes, like the reassuring feeling you get from a handshake versus the tightness in your chest you get when things don’t go to plan. I longed for some squeezes and dreaded others. The affectionate sentiment of hugs was few and far between, but the sinking feeling of anxiety was one I knew well.
The type of squeeze I knew best was the familiar sensation of trying to make myself smaller. It was a 20-pound weight in my stomach and a sharp pain in my chest. It was the creases left on my skin by clothing meant to suck me in and the cramping in my feet from shoes far too small. It was the pit in my stomach when my mother commented on my appearance. My personalized kind of squeeze was that of not being who I was supposed to be.
“I went from wanting to be a girly-girl to hating anyone who was.”
I endured the suffocating squeeze in the hope that it would facilitate its more pleasant sibling. I cramped my big feet into ballet flats instead of sneakers, I wore colors and styles that to me felt repulsive, and still found I couldn’t fit in. I bought Vogue and Seventeen magazines as if I valued any of the information within their colorful pages. However, this effort was futile — I didn’t like dolls or the color pink; I burped loudly and refused to style my hair in intricate ponytails.
As the only girl in my family, there was pressure to conform to that image of femininity that satisfied my Mexican immigrant family as well as my peers who grew up in the United States. But the fact of the matter was that I didn’t feel like I aligned with the traditional definition of the word “feminine”. When I realized I couldn’t achieve the brand of femininity that was expected of me, I developed a toxic animosity towards it.
If I couldn’t achieve it, then it was the fault of the women that did manage to embody femininity. This manifested into an equally detrimental but opposite perspective, where anything remotely feminine became beneath me. I went from wanting to be a girly-girl to hating anyone who was.
By 13, I was taller than everyone I knew, and my feet size had surpassed my mother’s. The girls in my class were starting to develop breasts and thighs, and here I was, getting longer. I earned the nicknames “Sasquatch” and “Bigfoot” and had to buy a new pair of shoes every few months when that was the last thing my family could afford.
I was alone in this, and that familiar squeeze took up permanent residence in my chest and in the pit of my stomach. When my height hit 6 feet and the only shoes that fit me were men’s, I lost all hope. I was destined to “look like a boy” and that thought was detrimental to my sense of self-worth, as in my mind my value revolved around how desirable I was perceived to be. What good was I to anyone if they didn’t love me?
“I didn’t want to be a princess anymore, I wanted to be a badass.”
People try to tell you to love yourself and that you’re perfect just the way you are, but the reality is that it won’t fully resonate unless you discover it for yourself. Plenty of the movies I turned to for comfort had the message of loving oneself, but only within the confines of 2000s-era beauty standards — it's easy to love yourself when you look like Hillary Duff or Anne Hathaway. To me, that sentiment was tainted with hypocrisy, since I didn’t see women that looked like me anywhere.
I was taller than all the boys my age; my tan skin and dark features weren’t the subjects of the self-love I saw on-screen. Disney princesses didn’t have my curved-down nose, unibrow or hairy toes, nor were they tomboys who got into fist fights with their brothers. I felt like I stuck out as much as my feet did from the covers on my bed.
As the years passed, teenage angst and dissatisfaction with the status quo led to a scornful approach to my own existence. I grew tired of hating myself. I didn’t want to be Sisyphus pushing the stone up the mountain only for it to roll down and crush me with its burden of existence once again. I felt selfish for being so concerned about my place in society and not of the people who my very society had turned their backs on.
I would never be like the women I saw in magazines, and I grew disillusioned with trying. So, to my mother’s dismay, I gave up. I stopped doing my nails and threw out my ballet flats for Chucks and Doc Martens (my current pair is seven years old!). I explored the ways in which I could be part of society in a way that made me happy, and in a way that valued who I was.
My role models shifted: from Charlie’s Angels and Christina Aguilera to people like Alice Bag and Kim Deal. I didn’t want to be a princess anymore, I wanted to be a badass. Listening to music gave me the purposeful squeeze I'd always longed for, and this time I didn’t have to change who I was to feel it. The warm feeling I got from the occasional hug now enveloped me like a blanket and gave me a reason to get up in the morning. My big feet and I finally felt like we had a place somewhere. Music made me feel like I belonged, from lyrics that spoke to my existence to environments where I could look and act the way I wanted.
Through music, I realized that I could feel beautiful in my own way. I feel the most feminine, the most powerful, and the happiest when I’m shoving fully grown men in mosh pits or have a bass guitar in my hands. I wouldn’t be able to do the things that make me happiest if I wasn’t who I am. The things I hated about myself became the things I liked the most. I love my giant feet and I love what they allow me to do.
Femininity and masculinity are terms that force people into a binary, and this binary didn’t work for me anymore. My big feet don’t make me any less feminine, and my newfound love for skirts doesn’t make me any less masculine. I can be both, and neither, and either, and the only person who I have to answer to about it is myself.
I don’t believe that confident people are fully confident 100% of the time. Comparison is the thief of joy, and I find it hard to believe that people can be immune to the effects of that. I’m so happy with who I've become, but I can admit that seeing wealthy girls post pictures of their flat stomachs, trendy lofts, and athleisure outfits strikes a chord.
But I can also acknowledge that they’re subject to similar sociological standards that I am, and just because they express themselves differently than I do doesn’t mean they might not hurt too. Not everyone has giant feet, but everyone has giant expectations that they’re pressured to live up to. Be gentle to yourself and to the people around you, finding out your place in the world isn’t easy.