193. Love healed me and allowed me to reconnect with my feminine side.

I used to want to be as cool as the guys and now guys don't even exist in my world. It's all about the girls and being on their team.

When I was a teenager, I hated skirts, dresses, and anything pink and I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it was because of daddy issues, maybe because I was taught that girls were mean and bullies, or maybe because it was just easier to be friends with “the guys.”

I was repeatedly told that boys were easier to be friends with because girls were bitchy. Girls were nasty. Girls were full of drama, and boys simply didn’t care. All of that made me want to become another one of the guys. I played football. I wore baggy clothes. I cut my hair short or always wore it in a low ponytail. I hated makeup. I hated the colour pink and purple. I played sports and lost all contact with girlhood.

I acted like I was too cool to be in love with Twilight, or to like Justin Bieber or One Direction. I swore I had no celebrity crushes and had never watched a rom-com, apart from High School Musical. I told everyone—but more importantly, myself—that I wasn’t into those “silly” things. I was cool because I was more like the guys. I was tough. I liked football and skateboarding. I wanted to surf and wear wetsuits. I wanted to play the drums and the guitar. I was cool, like the guys.

It’s taken me a really long time to learn that girl energy (and women being on the same team) can be profoundly life-changing. And it’s all thanks to my boyfriend that I’ve been able to understand and experience this. His love healed all of my broken parts.

I saw a post online about how someone’s boyfriend helped them fall in love with their girlhood again, and it made me think about how much mine has helped me do the same. Thanks to him loving me unconditionally and allowing me to fully be myself, I stopped trying to always be the cool girl who liked the same things guys did—and just allowed myself to be a girl.