From hairspray to safety pins I am not forced to wear a hijab; I choose to, and my favorite one is my hot pink one with sequins. The funny thing is some people have the image that I have to wear a plain black hijab draped in the ordinary way, but I break this stereotype by wearing every color but black. The decision to don a hijab was a long process, it wasn’t something I decided to do overnight, but I can proudly say I wear the hijab all the time now. It all began in the summer of 7th grade, when I was going to a picnic with my mom and her Quran class. There I saw girls younger, older, and my age wearing the hijab beautifully with a maxi dress or jeans and a loose summery top. I was wearing jeans and a blue blouse with my hair down and a scarf to have “modesty” and make me feel like I “belonged”. The funny thing is that no one actually made me feel like I didn’t “belong”. They were all so sweet and welcoming and it was their “welcoming” that sparked the idea in my head. Even though I wasn’t wearing a hijab at that moment, a wave of excitement overcame me and in 8th grade I made the transition and wore the hijab for the first time to school. “My” hijab attracted all kinds of people with all kinds of questions, such as, “were you forced to wear it ?” ,“do you take showers with that thing on?”, “do you sleep with it on?” I couldn’t help but laugh; after all, it is just a piece of cloth, but of course it holds a lot of value. When I cover myself, I make it virtually impossible for people to judge me according to the way I look. I cannot be categorized because of my attractiveness or lack thereof. The hijab allows a woman to be judged based on her personality, and not solely based on her looks. The feeling of success when a teacher or student complements me based on my work rushes past me, because I know they are judging me based on my work not merely on my looks. In 9th grade, I decided to try and see if wearing a hijab to social outings would work out for me, and to my surprise it all felt very natural. Instead of turning out to be awkward, wearing the hijab to places besides school, came very natural to me, like the hijab was destined to be adorned by me. From then on I proudly wore my hijab everywhere, except to the homes of my relatives.
It was in my junior year that I decided I was going to become a full time hijabi. In April of 2013, I wore my hijab to my uncle’s house and ended up being praised for my life changing decision. I was praised for choosing the hijab life because living in a western country, giving up American values,
