Tears swelling up in her eyes, she swipes vainly for her prized possession passed down from her mother and wails, "I am a girl!"

It was difficult, though obviously not impossible, for a young woman to grow up in a family of boys and men. The first and only daughter, granddaughter, and cousin; Carianne realized quickly that she obtained other female family members only when they married into her testosterone filled clan. "Chandler's have boys!" was the family motto, which began to disgust her later in life. Soon she was unapologetically quipping, "But only good men can raise a woman."

Childhood was a rough and tumble time for Carianne. A lot of time was spent wrestling with her cousins in the spacious living room at her grandparents, sitting around huge dining room tables and eating gratuitous amounts of food prepared every Sunday, and rebelling against the enrollment in sports and instead begging to go shopping for clothes or shoes. "She's a little girl, she's naturally feminine," her mother would explain to her father and uncles when they looked at her like an insect at the park during their Saturday meet-ups to play football.

She was luckier than some children, though, because her family was large and full of love. She attended elementary, junior, and high school with most of her cousins and made friends easily, even if her parents imposed a strict regiment for studying and disciplinary action when her grades drooped. It was in her early high school years that Carianne began dabbling in cosmetics. Not just applying them to herself, she had been doing that for years, but doing it for her friends and her aunts whenever their was a dance or family pictures.

When it was time to go to college, she sat down at the dining room table with her parents and presented them with two pieces of mail. One was an acceptance letter to NYU, where she would be granted a generous scholarship and qualified for governments grants to pick up the slack. The second piece of mail was an acceptance letter for Mac Beauty School in Manhattan. Her parents knew immediately which one Carianna was leaning toward since her bedroom had more cosmetics and haircare products in it than it did square feet.

After exchanging glances and talking with their eyes, they told her that if she elected to do the Mac Beauty School then she would have to work to support herself throughout it. She was welcome to live with them free of charge, but anything related to school had to be paid for by her. Carianne agreed and flung her arm's around her daddy's neck, thanking him for not pushing her in a direction she didn't want to go.

Mac Beauty School couldn't have been more fun, but something began to happen at home that Carianne couldn't understand. Her parents were fighting quietly in their room, she could hear words like "no" and "trust" and "just leave!" One day, after a particularly long day at school and a longer shift at Sephora, Carianne came home to find that her mother had moved out of the apartment in Brooklyn Heights.

Carianne was always closest to her father and at the tender age of nineteen, she didn't understand what was happening until he called her into the living room to explain that her mother was leaving New York and moving to Los Angeles. "Why?" was the obvious question and the only answer her father could give was, "She misses the ocean." To say Carianne didn't understand her parents divorce or why her mother seemingly left without any warning signals is an understatement.

Luckily enough, her mother and Cari kept a solid relationship -- long distance, obviously -- and never spoke of what really happened. A daddy's girl by nature, Cari stayed in New York with her father. To make ends meat, her father rented out the apartment he owned in Sunset Park and Carianne picked up more hours at Sephora. Together, they made a bad situation better. Their family rallied around them for moral support.

After graduation, Carianne went right to work in a Mac Pro Store and began freelancing on the side to make extra money. It didn't take her long to realize this cosmetics industry could be a lucretive business. She branched out -- posting short clips of winged liner techniques on facebook, the occassional walk through tutorial on instagram, and she had a following before she knew it. Get a Youtube, they said, get a Youtube. So she did.

Things really took off after her Youtube gained a huge following. Soon she was collaborating with Morphe Brushes, endorsed by Sigma Brushes, Mac would send her to huge events like Fashion Week and Vogue magazine shoots. Subscribers wanted to see her daily life, so she started an instagram and a twitter. Eventually even a SnapChat. She started giving reviews on higher end brands, reviews on products not worth the hype, cheaper alternatives to high end makeup and the more down to earth and glamorous she was, the more her subscribers loved her.

After a couple of years, her father told her that it was time for her to be on her own. The apartment he rented out in Sunset Park, Brooklyn was vacant and he had it updated for her as an early birthday present. He went as far as to hire movers for her so she wouldn't have to take time out of her hectic schedule. Elated, Carianne felt like she couldn't be any happier in life. Her father, even the intelligent and clever man, knew what he was doing though. With three months to live, he made sure that Carianne was settled in her apartment and put his in Greenpoint up for sale.

The death of her father took her by surprise, even moreso when she found out that cancer had taken his life at such a young age. Sadness, regret, anger all swept over her delicate heart in the blink of an eye. She sat at the reading of his will, face buried in the arm of his fraternal twin brother, heaving sobs of despair forcing the lawyer to talk louder. Carianne didn't care that she was in possession of his life insurance payout, the revenue from selling the three bedroom in Greenpoint, or legal owner of all his possessions.

All she wanted back was her daddy.

Her uncle helped her cope with that loss, though, and stepped in to help her handle the legal side of things. Without him, she acredits, she would have sank like a stone in the sea. Months passed before Carianne got over it and even today she doesn't talk about it much, especially to her mother who she harbors new resentment toward. Her life moved on, though, as life tends to do and she found herself grateful for the planning ahead that her dad did to benefit her and make her life easier.

She's still making videos, taking freelance clients, collaborating with brands she enjoys working with, and putting herself out there. She doesn't work for the retail side of Mac anymore, but they do put in requests for her time when Fashion Week or a big job opens up in New York and they need to send their best. For the most part, one could say, that Carianne's lucky enough to live the life she always dreamed out as a little girl. Even if she had to fight tooth and nail with all her male cousins to get it.