Personal. I was waiting for it to happen when I walked from the door of my house. And, in fact, it happened. As soon as I went out into the street, dressed in an ode to the 70’s, I felt a lot of eyes on me. As if, suddenly, I had come out of any movie.

I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that it did not bother me. A little, yes. I felt that the inquisitive glances wanted, somehow, to limit my creativity. As if the popular judgment were a force that condemns us without the right of contradiction. And that made me go back more than 10 years in time when, in a History class, I had a turban on my head and the teacher humiliated me in front of the whole class. But as I was 16, I rolled my eyes and muttered something like, “What does this woman know about fashion?” And I went on in my life, passing my History exams (it was one of my favorite subjects, actually) and dressing eccentrically, without worrying about what people would think.

Looking back, I feel a bit envious of my teenager self who did not care about what other people think about me. It seems that when we grow up, there comes a tacit obligation to be more what others expect us to be and less ourselves. Isn’t it awkward?

So lately, I’ve been struggling to get back being me, or at least getting some of the audacity that makes me want to conquer the world without fear back. I have been forcing me not to limit myself to the choices of what I am going to wear because of a bunch of people who don’t create anything, just judge the others. Fortunately, we live in a free country and, while some judge, others create. And I like to be part of the second group.