When I was little, my mom described me as nardy.  The phrase "nardy little body" for some reason sticks in my head, and it was just about right on.  I was nardy.  I was bony, usually well scabbed, had a short haircut because I slept with gum in my hair, climbed trees, rarely bathed, and wore my beloved cowboy boots without socks.  I was younger and smaller than most of the neighborhood and was usually the queen of hand me downs. If you look it up, nardy is not in the dictionary, but you can get an idea by looking at my school pictures for K - 3.



Nardy, right?  My family called me Niffy.  The boys in my neighborhood called me Jeninie Weenie with a 40 foot Weenie.  They shortened it to 40 Foot, and called me that all the way through the 5th grade when we moved away. O.K. nicknames for a nardy girl, I guess.

The funny thing is, even though years and years have passed, that is still how I see myself.  If I close my eyes and think "Jenine" I think "nardy".  Not in a bad way, just as a fact. 

Today I got my hair cut, and I told my hair goddess that I had a wedding to go to tonight and she must have used a whole bottle of hairspray so the style wouldn't "fall out" before I got my nardy body to the wedding. What strikes me the most, besides the sheer humor of big hair on me (and I realize some of you are capable of much bigger hair, but for me, this is big) is that in a dress, and heels, no one would look at me and think nardy.  And really, I don't know what to do with that.

I feel like I am faking it.  I feel I must correct people.  In fact, a few days ago someone made a comment about me getting away with something because I was a cute blonde, and when I got done laughing, I forced them to look at my short red haired driver's license - look!  I am not cute, I am nardy!  If people don't see nardy when they look at me, well, that is what I know how to be in my head.  How do I be something else?  

                                                       

Not that I am going back to the winnie-the-pooh turtle necks.