Dear Pink
As I was getting ready for work this morning, putting on my makeup, I randomly remembered something I've been trying to shove to the back of my mind for years because it's honestly so embarrassing.
Like any other Mexican girl, I grew up dreaming about my quinceañera. And as it gets closer, of course everyone starts asking what you're going to do for your big day.
Well, one day my cousin asked if my dress was going to be pink. I turned to her so fast, looked her dead in the eye, and said, “No. Never. That's a disgusting color, and you will never catch me wearing it.”
Which is hilarious considering that three years later, there I was celebrating my quinceañera in a giant pink ballgown.
The funny thing is, when I was little, I loved pink. It was everywhere. My clothes, my shoes, my nails, my room. Literally everywhere. I used to fight my cousin over who got to be the Pink Power Ranger because, in my mind, that was my color.
So... what happened?
As you get older, you start getting influenced by the world around you. And when I say “the world,” I don't mean outside your house. I mean outside your own head. You start picking up other people's opinions, values, and beliefs. For me, those people were my family.
Growing up as the youngest of four, you look up to your siblings. You watch everything they do and think, “I want to do that too.”
Well, little Jo, there was one tiny problem.
You weren't just the youngest.
You were also the only girl in a traditional Mexican household.
What did that mean?
You want to hang out with friends? Nope.
You wanted to stay after school and try out for the soccer team? No. “Porque uno nunca sabe.” One never knows.
Your friends invited you to the mall? No. “Porque las niñas siempre deben estar con sus papás. ¿Qué va a pensar la gente?” No because girls should always be with their parents. What are people going to think.
Little Jo didn't realize that being a girl meant she wasn't going to have the same freedoms her older brothers did.
And who ended up taking the blame for all of it?
Poor pink.
I started hating the color. What it represented. I hated being a girl. I hated God for making me one. I hated everyone who kept reminding me what I was “supposed” to be.
So I did what I thought was easier, I changed everything about myself.
I became a tomboy. I wore nothing but dark colors, of course mostly my brothers' old clothes. I stopped wearing nail polish. I stopped caring about earrings. I barely brushed my hair. Anything that felt feminine, I wanted nothing to do with.
I became the complete opposite of the little girl who used to wear bright colors and spend forever deciding which pair of sparkly earrings to buy at the dollar store.
Honestly, I don't even know what changed.
Maybe I got tired of constantly being told I wasn't feminine enough. Or maybe I got tired of being the only girl in my class who didn't know how to be one.
Whatever it was, when I turned fifteen, I decided to give femininity another chance.
Funny enough, pink still wasn't my first choice.
I was actually planning on getting a blue dress instead. But at the very last minute, I changed my mind.
I decided to give little Jo the pink princess quinceañera she'd always dreamed of.
And I don't regret it for a second.
I'm still learning how to embrace that feminine side of myself. My mom never really wore makeup or dressed up. We're from a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, and as the oldest daughter of nine siblings, she never really had the chance to go through that girly-girl phase either.
The closest thing I had to older sisters were my cousins, and most of them got married by the time I was twelve or thirteen.
So yeah, I'm still figuring it out.
But at least now I can proudly say that my favorite color is still pink.