kathynorthup

At Thirteen
by Kathy Northup

When I was 13, I use to wish that I could be beautiful. Drop-dead, car screeching, construction crew whistler beautiful. I wasn’t ugly at that age, by any means. But I had the frizzy and parted-in-the-middle Rosanna-danna hair, checkered and over-sized flannel shirt, and flag-striped, bell-bottom pants. Oh, and my 13 year old Clearasil'd-face bore a constant glare of shine from the third application of Clearasil that I had applied by 10 am on any particular day. And of course, not a speck of makeup to cover all those adolescent flaws.

I wasn’t like roll-on-the-floor-laughingly hideous looking or anything. I was just part of the 70’s era where hippy and flowerchild look alikes were cool to imitate.  Of course, I went with imitating the male hippy-look instead of the feminine flowerchild look. Big mistake for a girl that wanted boys dropping to their knees as she walked by.

But even though I was only 13, I knew that beauty was only skin deep and that the inside of me counted for much more. So I concentrated on becoming a go-getter, full of enthusiasm, love and life. And it worked, then and now. Guys that are worth their weight in anything, of course, still care about beauty, but they also value a female with intelligence, compassion and a loving way about them.