I Think I Remember Why I Loved Being a Girl

Some things take you right back to being a little girl. A song you haven’t heard in years. The smell of your mother’s perfume. Finding an old picture of yourself in some outfit that you thought was the most fabulous thing in the world. And apparently, watching the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

As a kid, I watched those women walk the runway in beautiful lingerie, huge feathered wings, and heels that seemed impossible to wear all night. The glamour, the music, the blowouts, the glowy makeup, and the way the whole room lit up when an Angel appeared always amazed me. I wasn’t thinking about fashion or what a fashion show meant. I was just a little girl, seeing women who seemed to live in another world, and I thought it was the most magical thing I’d ever seen.

For a while, I think I forgot how much that meant to me.

When VS returned after its break, I really hoped I’d feel that same excitement again. I wanted to get butterflies and be completely caught up in what was happening on my TV. But the last few shows just didn’t have the same effect. Maybe I’d grown up, maybe the world had changed, or maybe it was both. I watched and enjoyed the show, but something felt different. I wasn’t feeling it the way I used to.

It was just… not the same. Then came the 2026 show.

Suddenly, I wasn’t just a woman in my twenties watching a fashion show on a Sunday night. I was that little girl again, sitting in front of the TV, completely captivated by the women on screen. That same sense of wonder and joy rushed back as I saw something beautiful and remembered why I loved it. For a moment, I felt that childhood excitement again, and it was wonderful. I realized how much I had missed it.

Perhaps that sounds rather dramatic for a fashion show. I think there’s something absolutely special about the things that remind us of who we were before we started worrying about who we were supposed to be.

There Is Something Almost Otherworldly About Women

I’ve always believed women are the most beautiful beings in the world. It’s not just about looks, though I could talk for hours about the beauty of a woman who carries herself well. It’s about everything women are: the way we create, love, and turn ordinary moments into something special. A woman can walk into a room and change its whole atmosphere without saying a word. We can be soft and strong, glamorous and messy, vulnerable and unbreakable, sometimes all before lunchtime.

Women have a way of making life feel more beautiful. Getting ready becomes a special ritual. A birthday, a regular Tuesday night, or even a trip to the supermarket can feel like an occasion if we’re in the right mood. We dress up with friends, take photos we’ll treasure for years, hype each other up in the bathroom mirror, and remind the women we love that they look beautiful, especially when the world forgets to tell them. Women experience so much joy in life together, and I think we don’t talk about it enough.

Watching the Victoria’s Secret show reminded me of how I felt as a kid looking at those women. They were absolutely otherworldly to me. Watching the Victoria’s Secret show brought back how I felt as a kid seeing those women. They seemed ethereal, almost like they had stepped out of a dream. Their beauty was amazing, but so were their confidence, movement, energy, and the joy of seeing women fully own their moment. They weren’t just walking the runway; they were creating something special, and I felt lucky to witness it. Knowing how it’s put together doesn’t diminish what it can achieve. A film can still break your heart even if you know how it ends. A song can still take you back to someone you haven’t spoken to in years. A runway show can still make a little girl somewhere believe that being a woman is one of the most beautiful things she could ever be.

That’s what I took away from this year’s show. I didn’t feel envy or want to be exactly like the women on screen. I just felt real admiration. I was simply happy that women can be so beautiful, talented, expressive, and unapologetically themselves. And I felt happy to be a woman too.

I Think We Sometimes Forget How Lucky We Are to Be Girls

Growing up is odd, really, because at some point you start trying so desperately to be a woman that you forget what it was like to have dreamed of being one.

You start worrying about your looks instead of enjoying getting dressed. You start comparing yourself to women you once simply admired. You become so focused on what you’re missing, what you haven’t achieved, and how far you still have to go that you forget you’re actually living the life you once dreamed about.

I think about the little girl I was, watching those shows and looking at those women. She had no idea what her twenties would be like. She didn’t know about falling in love, having her heart broken, making friends who would become family, getting dressed up for a night out, or walking into a room and feeling beautiful. She didn’t know about the hard days, the self-doubt, the disappointments, or how adulthood would sometimes fall short of the glamour she imagined.

But she didn’t know about the freedom; the freedom to be whoever I want, to try new styles, change my mind, take risks, fall in love with new things, and build a life that’s truly mine. She didn’t know that one day I’d get to live the life she watched from the other side of the TV.

That thought is quite emotional for me. I didn’t expect it to be.

We went from being little girls in awe of women living their lives to being women trying to live our own. I’m no longer just dreaming about adulthood; I’m here, in my twenties, figuring out what I want, building my life, and discovering what makes me happy. I’ve realized that becoming a woman isn’t a goal you reach and then move on from. It’s something you get to experience every day.

I’m still on this journey. I’m still learning to be confident, take up space, trust myself, and enjoy my life without always comparing it to someone else’s. I’m still figuring out what beauty means to me and what kind of woman I want to become. For the first time in a long while, that feels exciting, not scary.

Maybe that’s why this show meant so much to me. It made me see that my childhood dreams weren’t about becoming someone else; they were about becoming someone I admired. Now I’m old enough to admire other women and still feel proud of the woman I’m becoming.

From the Little Girl Watching to the Woman Living

There’s a special nostalgia in returning to something you loved as a kid. You expect to remember the experience, but you often end up remembering who you were. You recall the version of you who was happy before you knew how complicated happiness could be. You remember being amazed by things without needing a reason, and being completely captivated without pretending.

We spend so much of our twenties trying to get somewhere that we forget we’re already somewhere; and it’s actually pretty good. We’re all waiting for the dream job, the perfect apartment, the right relationship, the money, the confidence, the version of ourselves who has it all together. We treat our current lives like a waiting room for the lives we want.

But what if the girl we used to be would be absolutely thrilled to know we’d actually made it here?

What if she thought it was amazing that we get to choose our own outfits, go out with friends, buy the perfume we’ve saved up for, visit places we’d only seen online, and stay up late talking about who we’re becoming? What if she loved the little things we’ve started to overlook: the getting ready, the music while we do our makeup, the feeling of wearing an outfit that makes us stand taller, laughing with friends, the excitement of a new phase, and the freedom of knowing our life is truly ours?

I don’t want to get so caught up in becoming the woman I dream of being that I lose sight of enjoying being her right now.

I want to enjoy the life I’m living right now. I want to dress up just because I can, take photos with my friends, wear lipstick, buy flowers, go to the concert, and feel excited about things without questioning whether they’re important enough. I want to celebrate other women without feeling like their beauty or success takes away from mine. I want to see the women around me as inspiration, possibility, and community, not competition.

Most of all, I want to remember that being a woman isn’t simply about the person I hope to become someday. It’s also about the person I get to be today.

The VS Fashion Show reminded me of that in the most bizarre way. It was utterly nostalgic in the simplest way, and it made me so grateful for that little girl who first showed it to me. She didn’t know what her life would be like, but she was already finding things that made her feel something. She was already dreaming. She was already in love with the idea of being a woman.

And now I get to live that dream in my own way.

I Love Being a Woman

I love being a woman. There’s such beauty in becoming a woman. The sheer ability to reinvent yourself, to be different versions of yourself at different times in your life, and to look back on who you used to be with a kind of tenderness rather than embarrassment. I love the friendships that teach you how to love. I love the women who quietly inspire you without even realizing it. I love the moments when you see yourself in someone you once looked up to.

I love that womanhood can be both glamorous and completely ordinary. It’s the emotion of watching a fashion show and being moved by women’s beauty. It’s the joy of laughing with friends until you’re sick, the sadness of crying in the car after a hard day, the feeling of putting on an outfit and feeling like yourself again. It’s realizing you’ve made it through things your younger self couldn’t imagine. Womanhood can be ambition and softness, independence and connection, confidence and doubt, all at once.

And I love that I don’t have to be a finished product to enjoy it.

I don’t need my dream job, dream body, or dream house, and I don’t have to have everything figured out. I don’t have to wait until I feel like the best, most successful, or most confident version of myself to enjoy my life. I can be a work in progress and still be proud. I can admire the women who came before me and still see that I’m becoming someone worth looking up to, too.

Watching the 2026 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show made me feel like a little girl again. It also made me realize I don’t have to go back to being that little girl to feel that way. I can have her with me. I can keep the wonder, the imagination, the admiration, and the capacity to find magic in the things that make me happy. I can allow her dreams to grow and evolve as I grow into my own.

For years, I watched women on TV and thought they were incredible. Now, I get to see women in my own life building their futures, chasing dreams, making art, falling in love, taking risks, and becoming themselves. I get to do all of that too. Maybe the best part of growing up is realizing that the world you once watched from a distance is a world you’re allowed to be part of.

I’m not that little girl anymore. She’s still in there somewhere, though, and I hope I never lose the part of her that can look at something beautiful and be utterly, completely, and unashamedly happy.

Because I think I finally get what she was so excited about. She wasn’t just dreaming of being a woman. She was dreaming of living.