Different, Not Better

My sister used to make comments about how I dressed, how I did my makeup, how I colored my hair. She said I was trying to look different, not better. From her perspective, appearance was a hierarchy — something measured by how closely you matched what others admired, what drew approval, what signaled success or desirability. Looking “better” meant aligning with those expectations.



She meant it as a criticism.



But what she never understood is that I was never trying to compete in that system at all.



For me, color has always been a language. Long before I had the words to explain myself, I was already speaking through texture, contrast, and intuition. Bright hair, unconventional makeup, outfits that didn’t always “match” — these weren’t attempts to stand out for attention. They were acts of translation. Ways of saying this is how the world feels inside me.



Matching has never been the point. Expression is.



I’ve always been drawn to pieces that don’t logically go together but feel right when they’re worn together. A jacket because I love its weight. A necklace because it feels like armor. Colors because they carry emotion. I would build a look, inhabit it for a moment — sometimes a day, sometimes an evening — and then let it go. Most of the time, I’d slip right back into what I lovingly call goblin mode: oversized clothes, bare face, soft fabrics, comfort first.



That part matters just as much.



Comfort has never been laziness for me. It’s freedom. It allows me to move through the world without friction, without constantly adjusting myself to meet an external standard. When my body is at ease, my mind can wander. I can listen. I can notice. I can be present instead of performing.



I think about nights out with friends, how they would wear heels and look stunning — truly, breathtaking — and yet their feet hurt, their posture stiffened, their attention divided. They were managing their bodies instead of inhabiting them. I’d be there in combat boots, whether I was wearing a dress or not, grounded and steady, able to walk for hours, dance without thinking, exist without cost.



The same was true at concerts. I never wanted to be the person watching the show through a phone screen. I wanted the bass in my chest, the lights in my eyes, the moment imprinting itself into memory instead of storage. I trusted that someone else would record it — and if they didn’t, that was okay too. Presence mattered more to me than proof.



That philosophy has shaped how I understand beauty.



Beauty, for me, has never been about perfection. It has never been about polish or approval or fitting into a frame that someone else designed. It’s about aliveness. About being at home in your own skin. About letting yourself be a living composition — layered, evolving, sometimes chaotic, sometimes quiet.



There is a kind of beauty that asks you to disappear into it. To smooth yourself down. To become palatable.



And then there is the kind of beauty that lets you exist as art.



The kind that doesn’t need to make sense to anyone else. The kind that honors intuition over trend, comfort over spectacle, experience over appearance. The kind that allows you to change — to be vibrant one day and invisible the next — without apology.



Looking different was never the goal. Being true was.



And if that reads as rebellion to some people, so be it. To me, it has always felt like home.



And maybe that’s the quiet truth underneath it all: I was never trying to be seen as better. I was trying to be seen at all — by myself first. To recognize my own reflection as something honest, lived-in, and real. To let my outer world echo my inner one without asking permission. If that means being different, then different has always been enough for me.

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