My Personal Goal for 2020: Find My Own Style

And stop hating that I don’t look like my sister.

My younger sister, Jill, is stunning. She’s just over six feet tall and holds herself with regal, straight posture. She has thick brunette hair that hangs sleek and straight, nearly to her waist. She’s a classic, elegant beauty, the kind of woman that you can’t help noticing.

I’m tall, too. But 5'9" tall, not 6'1" tall. Not tall enough for my height to be anything special. And I have unruly curls that tend toward frizz. I’ve spent my whole life wanting long hair like my sister and in nearly 50 years, it’s never worked.

I’m just not as put together as my sister is. I never have been.

In a family with nine children, everyone gets an identity. Jill was the pretty one. I was the fat one.

We just spent ten days together in Mexico and a couple of months ago we both went to visit my daughter in Oregon for a long weekend. It’s the most time we’ve spent together in a long time and it’s been wonderful.

I’ve also had some time to reflect on how frumpy I sometimes feel and why that is. And why my sister never seems to have that problem. Ever. I’m not kidding. She looks fantastic in her pajamas.

I’ve come up with a few things.

Jill isn’t trying to be someone else. She’s been the pretty one all her life. That’s not a judgement or a complaint. It’s just a fact. She’s had positive attention for her looks since she was a child. Even being very tall has never been something that she saw as a negative (hence her amazing posture.)

I’ve spent my entire life trying to be more like Jill. Because we’re so close in age, we were compared to each other a lot as kids. And, true fact, I was the fat one. I got sat down from a very young age and talked to about how I wasn’t fat yet, but if I wasn’t careful I would wind up just like my mom — so I was the fat one, even when I wasn’t fat.

Jill naturally gravitates toward things that flatter her. Her long, sleek hair is a good example. It suits her perfectly. It fits her personality, her style, and her body.

Short hair is better for me — I have a small face and a personality that’s better suited for slightly-messy, unruly hair that doesn’t fight my natural curls and the fact that my hair isn’t as thick in front as it is in back. But I constantly try to grow it out because I want hair like Jill’s even though even when I have long hair it’s nothing like hers, then cut it off when I can’t stand it anymore, then grow it out — instead of just embracing what works for me.

Jill and I are sisters and we have a lot in common, physically, but we’re also very different.

Jill is long and lean and angular. She’s all legs and arms. Nearly every one of the inches that she’s taller than me is in her inseam. She’s built like our dad (he’s 6'6") and his mother (she was as tall as my sister.)

I’m built just like our mom — tall, but not that tall, and softer. Most of the time, people are surprised to find out how tall I am. Despite my height, I never stand out as super tall unless I’m surrounded by a lot of people who are head and shoulders shorter than me. And even then, it’s often not until we’re looking at photographs that someone says — wow, I never realized how tall you are, Shaunta.

Jill and I both have brown hair and hazel eyes, but she’s got a cool tone and I’ve got a warm one. She’s a winter and I’m a spring.

What I’ve realized recently is that I don’t want to look like Jill.

I want to be as comfortable in my skin as she is in hers. I want to be as put together as she seems to effortlessly manage to be every time I see her.

I’ve been reading a book by David Zyla called Color Your Style. Zyla is a Broadway stylist and he’s very focused on colors — especially in using the colors of your skin, hair, and eyes to develop a clothing pallette.

I also signed up for this free class from Carol Tuttle of Live Your Truth, which is more about how movement relates to style.

I struggled with understanding Zyla’s method, although I was fascinated by it. After days of staring at pictures of my eyeballs and analyzing my hair color, I’m still not quite sure what’s going on there. I’m pretty sure I’m a spring. But that’s as close as I can get.

Zyla will be in Cleveland in March and I’m trying to set up an appointment with him. It’s a splurge, but I’m pretty excited about it. Stay tuned for more, if I can actually make that happen.

But I knew instantly that I was a Type 1 in the Live Your Truth system. I mean, it was so obvious to me. Tuttle says that every type has a gift and Type 1’s gift is — Ideas. Not just having ideas, but having the energy and desire to implement them. Type 1 women are full of energy that moves up and out, they are just as excited about other people’s ideas as they are about their own. Type 1 is effervescent and messy.

And, what was equally obvious to me is that my sister is a Type 4. She’s (much) more reserved and contemplative than I am. Her gift is her ability to think things through and make them better. Interestingly — Type 1 relates to Spring and Type 4 to winter, something I didn’t know as I watched the video describing the types in detail.

I feel completely motivated to clean out my closet and stop trying so hard to be like my sister and just embrace being myself.

Here’s my secret weapon for sticking with whatever your thing is.

Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She is an out-of-place Nevadan living in Northwestern PA with her husband, three superstar kids, two dementia patients, a good friend, Alfred the cat, and a yellow rescue dog named Maybelline Scout. She’s on Twitter and Instagram and is the author of Viral Nation and Rebel Nation, and The Astonishing Maybe. She is the original Ninja Writer.