When I was a kid, my dad would go to the grocery store to pick up a bunch of things.
He would go into the gift shop and buy the most amazing things.
I loved it because he would put all the little pieces together.
He was so talented.
The best part was that I loved his creativity.
I started to think about that when I started working at my parents jewelry store.
It’s a jewelry shop that I like to visit.
It has a big, old store where my dad still works, but I’m now in charge of the store.
So, whenever my dad’s not there, I would come by.
So my dad used to say, “Hey, look at this beautiful new jewelry that you just got!” and I’d get excited.
I was like, “Wow, this is beautiful!
This is beautiful!”
I’d buy it, and I was going to put it on my head and wear it on weekends.
But I always wondered if that was how I looked.
I just thought, “Maybe that’s why my dad didn’t want me to wear that.”
So I decided to figure out what it was.
I started with a few simple measurements.
I took a ring I had and measured the circumference of it to make sure it was a reasonable size for a girl.
I used a ruler and cut it out.
I had my mom help me.
And I put on some eyeliner and put on a necklace with the same measurements.
So I went into the store and put that on.
And then I looked at my hair and it was very long.
I said, “I’m not going to wear it.”
I was just so nervous.
My dad didn and my mom and I went to his house to see if he wanted to wear the necklace.
He said, “‘No.
I don’t wear it.
That’s just a little too much.'”
But he still loved the necklace so much that he gave me a bunch and he said, ‘You can wear it anytime.’
I decided that I wanted to do something for myself.
I wanted it to look like I looked, so I put it all together.
So I went in and measured all of my hair.
I looked in my mirror and I had these really thick, thick curls.
And my dad said, `That’s not going down, it’s not getting out.
You look like a girl.’
He was like that.
So he said to me, `You look like you could go to a girls locker room and you could get a bra, you could wear a dress.
But this is the perfect thing for you.’
“I decided I needed to try to get this in shape.
And so I got a new set of measurements.
But it wasn’t going to look as perfect.
And the next day I went back and measured again.
I didn’t change anything.
It was just the same thing.
I got it the same.
So when I went on my first trip to a beauty parlor, I got the same jewelry.
It looks like this.
I wore it in my first day of the trip, and it didn’t look right.
And that’s when I decided I would try to do it the right way.
It’s not like my hair is bad.
I think I’m really good at it.
But my hair was kind of messed up and I needed some help.
So a friend of mine took the jewelry I had from my dad and started putting it on.
My mom, who was always very protective of me, was just like, `What are you doing?
You look weird!’
So I was really nervous.
I thought, `I’ll just go home and wait until the day before I leave.’
So I took my dad, my mom, and a couple other friends and we went home.
I put my hair in the bra and my necklace on.
I knew what I wanted.
So we went back to my parents and they were like, ‘No, no, you can’t do that.
You can’t wear that.’
I was embarrassed.
I went home and I sat down at the counter and my dad was like [laughs] “I don’t want you to do this.
You don’t look like me.
You have to wear something else.
“But I was able to do what I needed.
I wasn’t ashamed of it, I didn ‘t look like it.’
So it was OK.