I Was Never Normal. I Just Had More Than One Look | The Kimberly Diaries - 002

I was never normal.

Not as a kid. Not as a teenager. And certainly not now.

While other teenagers were doing whatever normal teenagers were supposed to be doing, I was in my bedroom dressing up in weird outfits and watching cartoons.

By myself.

And I was perfectly happy.

My parents used to tell me I needed to grow up. Apparently, there was an age limit on costumes, cartoons, and having an imagination.

Nobody bothered to tell me what that age was.

And even if they had, I probably would’ve ignored it.

It All Started With Madonna. Well, Mostly.

I was around ten years old when Madonna came along, and something about her style completely fascinated me.

The lace. The bows. The jelly bracelets. The layers of jewelry. The attitude.

I wanted all of it.

And I pretty much had all of it.

Looking back, I probably loved dressing up long before Madonna. But she’s the first real memory I have of falling completely in love with a particular look.

And here’s the funny thing.

I still love that style today.

Some things you just don’t outgrow.

Apparently, You Had to Pick a Clique

School was where things got complicated.

There were cliques. Everybody seemed to have their own group, their own style, and their own unwritten rules about how you were supposed to look and act.

And apparently, you were supposed to pick one.

That was my problem.

I wanted to dress like all of them.

I loved different styles. Different looks. Different ways of expressing myself.

One day I might love one group’s fashion, and the next day I’d be fascinated by something completely different.

But that wasn’t exactly socially acceptable.

Instead of seeing someone who genuinely appreciated different styles, people saw someone who couldn’t make up her mind.

Or worse, someone who was being fake.

And because I didn’t fit neatly into one group, I became an outcast.

That was hard, especially at an age when fitting in felt like everything

For a long time, I wondered if maybe they were right.

Maybe I didn’t know who I was.

Maybe I was trying too hard to fit in.

But looking back now, I think they misunderstood something about me that I didn’t even understand myself yet.

I wasn’t pretending to be someone else. I just didn’t want to be limited to one version of myself.

Then Came the Goth Years

As I got older and eventually moved out of my parents’ house, I started discovering other styles that fascinated me.

Goth was one of them.

I loved the dark clothing, the dramatic makeup, the entire aesthetic.

But there was a problem.

I loved the look. I didn’t necessarily fit the culture.

And once again, I found myself wondering where I belonged.

I could appreciate the style without necessarily sharing everything that came with it.

But back then, I still thought choosing a look meant choosing an identity.

It took me a long time to realize those weren’t the same thing.

I could love Goth fashion without having to be Goth.

I could love Madonna’s style without trying to become Madonna.

And I could change my appearance without changing who I was underneath.

Maybe I Was Being Myself All Along

For years, I thought finding yourself meant settling into one identity.

One style.

One group.

One version of yourself that everybody could recognize.

But what if that’s not how everybody works?

What if some of us genuinely love variety?

What if changing your look doesn’t mean changing who you are?

I spent a lot of time thinking I was trying to fit in somewhere, when maybe the truth was that I never really belonged to just one category.

And I didn’t need to.

I could love Madonna and Goth.

Cartoons and costumes.

Bright colors and dark makeup.

None of those things canceled out the others.

They were all pieces of me.

And the people who called me fake?

Maybe they just couldn’t understand someone who didn’t want to fit inside one box.

Growing Up Was Never the Problem

I’m 51 now.

I still love costumes.

I still love cartoons.

I still love changing my look whenever the mood strikes.

And somewhere along the way, I stopped believing that growing up meant giving those things up.

Maybe my parents were right that I needed to grow up in certain ways.

But growing up and growing boring are two completely different things.

I have responsibilities. I have an adult life.

I also have wigs, costumes, and an imagination that apparently never got the memo.

And I’m perfectly fine with that.

Because after all these years, I’ve finally figured something out.

I wasn’t trying to be everybody else. I was just enjoying all the ways I could be me.

And if that’s not normal?

Well, normal was never really my thing anyway.