A girl, a woman, or something in between

I’m not the same girl. Am I a girl? I recently heard Christina Aguilara’s new song “Not myself tonight” where she repeats several times that she is not the same girl. Is she still a girl?

I am getting ready for my 24th birthday which means that I will be in my mid-twenties. I have given some thought to whether that means I still get the title of young woman or if I will officially become a woman with neither young or old attached to who I am. I wasn’t really entertaining the idea of being a girl still.  Am I allowed?

As a girl fantasizing about being grown up, being a woman, I did not imagine the culture of my womanhood. I imagined myself as a woman. Unfortunately the bigger breasts I had envisioned never came into fruition. I do feel a little reluctant to let go of my girlhood. I would like to take it with me as I enter my womanhood. There is something powerful in the carefree attitude that my own girlhood contained which seems unlike womanhood land, which contains even more rules and roles.

Perhaps, I should embrace the intertwining of girlhood and womanhood that this transition to adulthood elicits. It is probably why we have the term young woman. I am not the same girl because I am not solely a girl anymore as I now have some of that womanhood thrown into the mix. While womanhood land may have some rules and roles that come with being an adult I believe I will discover a freedom unlike in girlhood; the freedom that comes with the ability to make choices.