The Power of Creativity

I always wished that I wasn't a product of the dysfunction that I grew up with. I looked at the other girls at school and longed to be them. You know the ones. They had beautifully styled hair, smoothed back in sleek ponytails, perfectly pressed dresses and the latest shoes. I'd stand near them in line at lunch or sit at the table next to them in the library and listen to them talk about the best brand of jeans to have, where their family was going on vacation, and where they went shopping over the weekend.

In my family, the closest thing we ever had to a vacation was packing up all our belongings that would fit into a U-Haul truck and driving cross country to the next military base. Shopping trips happened only three or four times a year and except for underwear, socks, and shoes which were bought at K-mart, shopping happened at thrift stores like New to You, Goodwill, or St. Vincent de Paul.

I longed to fit in, to have the same stylish clothing that my classmates had. So, as I eavesdropped on their conversations I would memorize the names of the brands and the stores that they shopped at. I would pour through the pages of magazines like Seventeen and Young Miss at the local library imprinting my brain with images of details and flourishes on the latest and hottest fashions for teens.

At the age of twelve, a determined thriftstore shopper was born. I would scour the stores for labels that matched those of my classmates. I would search for details that mimicked the details I saw in magazines. I would dig through the 69-cent bin for items that I could make over to reflect what I saw in the fashion magazines. I would take my treasures home, thankful that my grandmother had taught me to sew and I would hem, change buttons, add ribbons, whatever it took to recreate the images I saw in my classes and in the pages of fashion magazines. Creativity had become my salvation.