That word....

I think it was Senior year of high school when people started referring to my peers and me as “young men and women.” It was around that time when church leaders started emphasizing Bible verses about becoming “men and women” of God and parents started talking about “womanhood” and “manhood.” It was also around that time when I wanted nothing more than to stay 17 or 18 forever without having to deal with the responsibilities of becoming a “woman.” Just hearing the word “woman” made me want rip my knotted intestine out of my stomach.

Then I went to college.

It was definitely my Freshman year of college that I was actually being referred to as a “woman,” and knowing that I wanted to gut myself at the thought of becoming a women, you can imagine how I felt when people were assuming I was officially a woman.

I don’t know why the word “woman” holds such negative weight in my mind. I have been exposed to many incredibly smart, gifted, and insightful women and my parents have been nothing but supportive of my “girliness” (or lack there of). So why this word makes me want to punch a cement wall, I still don’t know. How words themselves can trigger deep emotion stuns me as well, but that’s a question for a different blog post.

What I do know is that I have always had a fear of getting older. I distinctly remember crying on my fourteenth birthday because I wasn’t done being thirteen yet. I spent my entire seventeenth birthday sulking in my room, because seventeen was “too old.” Nowadays, I’m very convinced that if I came across a magic lamp and a genie burst out offering me three wishes, my first wish would be to never get older than twenty-one. So I’m petty and don’t want to get old, but I’m not ignorant of the fact that I will age and physically become a woman. But this isn’t the type of “woman” to which I hold such great disdain.

I’m not one for stereotypes. I have always been the dancer who climbs mountains and the girl that says “dude” and the cheerleader who gets good grades and the outdoors type who like clothes and of late, the writer who holds conservative views. To me, “woman” has a lot of baggage. The word “woman” comes with lots of stereotypes—domestic, nurturing, teacher-like, curvy, moody are a few that come to my mind—and although I can identify with many womanly stereotypes, I hate the idea of falling into any of them. I guess you could say that I don’t want to just be “normal.”

Here’s the big BUT: I want to be a teacher and a homemaker and eventually a mom and a wife. Does that mean that I actually fall into preconceived stereotypes? Maybe; and for the first time in my life! But it’s not because I’m conforming to societal rules, it’s because I’m becoming more myself. I am proud to say I have come a long way from my “never getting married or having kids and spending my entire life furthering my career” self.

Yes, I still don’t want to get old and yes “woman” still makes me want to choke a little bit (I’m working on that) but I’m becoming ok with taking on this task of being a woman (just writing that makes my heart twist).

Here’s the other big BUT: I will never ever, EVER lose my title of mom and dad’s “little girl.” I refuse to let knowledge or wisdom or increased responsibility (“womanhood”) tear me from my childhood or the fact that I will always be younger than someone and have the ability to learn from those more “manly” or “womanly” (“adulty?”) than me.