To the early bloomers,

I know exactly how you feel. I have been frustrated with my appearance since I was around the age of eleven. The summer after sixth grade was the first time I remember hating the way I looked. Before that, I was oblivious to the concept of flaws. I was just having fun and I thought my mom was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, which she still is. I did not think I needed to change my life at all; I was happy with my brother and my dogs and my teachers and my friends. I never looked at the number on my jeans or stared at myself in the mirror for more than the amount of time it took for me to brush my teeth. But the summer after sixth grade, I became a “woman.” I put that in quotes because no 11-year-old is really a woman. I got my first period, my first bra, started shaving my legs and had my first real crush. It seems like overnight, I was suddenly self-conscious about pretty much everything. How curly my hair was, how fair my skin was, how loud my voice was, but especially how different I looked from all of my friends.

If you relate to this at all, you are probably an early bloomer. You likely did not want to be 'unique' and just wanted to be like your best friends who were stick-thin, sweet and ordinary girls. You shopped at the teen stores and wore the exact same clothes every other girl did, but they did not look right on you. Maybe you were embarrassed in bathing suits because you had a chest and a bit of a tummy and your friends never seemed to worry about that. You even had to get braces before everyone else because all of your adult teeth had come in by the time you were 10. Early bloomers are not always the sexy teens you see in movies and maybe being the only “woman” in your friend group just made you even more awkward. You tried to hide your differences and blend in where you clearly did not belong. Your class crush looked like he was 5 years younger than you were and you were offered alcohol at restaurants when you were 13.

Being an early bloomer may be something you still deal with. You still look much older than you are, which is not always a good thing. Boys sometimes think because you have a large chest, you must be 'easy.' They can treat you differently than your sweet and innocent looking friends. People often think you are much more experienced or knowledgeable than you are and you find yourself in over your head very often. You're not thin, but not fat by any means. You could exercise almost every day, eat half as much as your girlfriends, yet still weigh 30 lbs more than them. You're still not exactly sure how that is fair. You have stretch marks from growing hips overnight.

Being an early bloomer is not as great as your late bloomer friends think it is. You hear how jealous people are of your body type all of the time and you just nod and think how crazy they must be. There are few perks though. No one questions if your age, you fill out dresses nicely and most people take you seriously. But all of the girls whose bodies grew up before they did can relate to the struggles of being an early bloomer.