Amale Bouzlafa

“Follow your heart, it knows the way, whatever people say.”

That’s what I kept reminding myself for years after I decided to stop Law School and start a career as an artist. It’s interesting… lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the child/teenager I was and the adult I became, and how much I’ve changed in a lot of good ways. But sometimes I feel like I’ve lost something along the way… Somehow, I feel like that child understood things that my adult self has kind of forgotten.

As long as I can remember, art has always been a part of my life. I started conservatory when I was six with solfège and piano, then ballet, which I hated. They forced me to wear a pink tutu, and God knows how much I hated pink or dresses when I was younger. 😅 Don’t get me wrong, I’m a very straight and feminine woman, I’m just not the usual straight/feminine woman, let’s just say. And it has always been the case…

My definition of femininity, or how a woman “should be,” has always been very different from the societal definition. Talking about that… it has always been an issue! The way society defines women as having to wear dresses or makeup, the way women are portrayed in shows and movies (don’t get me started on these classical Disney princesses). I remember growing up and struggling to relate to these girls and women because the women that were surrounding me were strong, fighters, and ambitious. Struggling to relate to these characters and refusing to be seen as a passive flower waiting to be picked by Prince Charming, I would tend to relate to characters like Luke Skywalker from Star Wars or Daniel LaRusso from Karate Kid.

That was the case until I was around eleven, and that year something changed. I couldn’t say what exactly (hormones, I guess), but I started to notice the differences between the masculine and the feminine, and that started to change my behavior towards the other gender.

The girls, now teenagers around me, started to get obsessed with their appearance, the way they dressed, the way their hair looked, and what makeup looked best. Behavior probably influenced by the ton of reality TV and romance they would watch.

Then started the game of who is different and the witch hunt game. I quickly understood that I would either have to be the stronger (secretly hated one) to keep my difference, the weaker one that follows, or the victim of the witch hunt.

I chose to be the outcast, the rebel, because there was no way I was going to melt my difference to fit in, and I was too strong for them to break me. I would instead defend people who got bullied, sometimes with words, sometimes with punches (I’ll tell you one day about the fight I had at eleven on the school bus), sometimes against my own “friends”…

So I was that kind of character until one year something happened, and it turned back on me, changing everything…Story for another day! 🙂

Moral of this story :

• Embrace your individuality: Be true to yourself and your passions, even when they’re different from societal norms.
• Follow your heart: Trust your instincts and pursue what makes you happy, no matter the opinions of others.
• Resist conformity: Stand strong against pressure to fit in and keep your uniqueness!
• Value resilience: Stay strong and resilient in the face of challenges and adversity.
• Celebrate self-discovery: Understand and accept your own identity, even if it means being different from others.

Trusting it will bring some light to someone’s shadow,

Amale 💫💙