Year of the Red Pleated Skirt

Dreams of transformation started every August with a visit to the neighborhod department stores to select five new outfits and a new pair of shoes for the school year ahead. Skin golden, limbs lithe, long hair as nearly blond as it would ever be without the help of foil and chemicals, I combed the racks for the clothes that would change my life.

The year I remember best, I brought home, among other things, a red pleated skirt and softly-striped red and white blouse, along with a large red bow for the back of the hair that grazed my shoulders. I was weeks away from being 12 years old, a seventh grader.

More so even than most years, I thought, “This is the year!” The year of popularity. The year of brilliant accomplishments and being beautiful (or at least cute). The year when I would peel back the cocoon and stun everyone with my unfurling wings.

Alas, every year my hair was still mousy brown; I was still too shy to raise my hand and venture out with a potentially wrong answer; and I never became the attention-magnet whose friends urged her to try out for cheerleader. In fact, the year of the red pleated skirt was the same year I couldn’t even get elected hall monitor. I marched in line like everyone else, never daring skip a step and aching to experience life with those wings I could almost imagine. 

Every year was just another year of the caterpillar.

But as August melted into September, oh, didn’t I dream.

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