A Tragedy

On the first day of Kindergarten, a piece of paper was placed in front of me, and I was asked to draw a picture of myself. 

"Sure thing," I thought.  I took my pencil and proceeded to draw a large head with two eyes, a nose, a mouth, and long hair.

Done.  Me.

My teacher came along and wrapped her arm around the back of my chair, "Don't you want to add some color like the other kids."

I think I was expecting her to complement my drawing, because I remember feeling a little crestfallen. I liked my drawing the way it was, but I didn't want to disappoint my new teacher so I reached for a red crayon and quickly made some adjustments.

This was the end result:

Through out the school year I learned that I had blonde hair, blue, eyes, that I was a girl, and that I probably liked pink.  At the end of the year we were given the exact same piece of paper and asked, again, to draw a picture of ourselves.  

This time I came up with the following:

I guess you could argue that I had become a better artist, or that I had become more self aware, but I think that what we are actually seeing is the result of a bizarre societal pressure to focus on what I looked like more than who I was. And it leaves me feeling slightly disappointed.  It makes me miss the girl who first entered that classroom, unaware of eye or hair color, confident, content to do her own thing, happy with who she was inside, and unaware of the things she wasn't or the way that other's perceived her.  I wish I'd stayed that girl.