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.

Driving thought tangents

While in my driving daze (Mike left the whole chicken in his car overnight and all day until I discovered that we had no chicken in our refrigerator) I was thinking about this new health care bill and what it says to women about women, which of course went off into another thought tangent as soon as I drove by the Saint Francis Xavier Church.

Last summer I would occasionally go for a run outside and would pass by this church. Whenever I would run by the church I would take those seconds and dedicate them to my spiritual growth. I am more of a spiritual person than a religious person thus running by the church was my church. Of course thinking about running brought me to another thought tangent.

I miss being able to run outside more frequently. When I first started running in middle school I lived on a dirt road. I loved the sound of my shoes hitting the rocky dirt and the way the trees would line the road. It made my own little private world. Now that I am in a city I do not like to run outside as much. I hate the traffic and the smell of exhaust. I hate waiting to cross the road and I hate that instead of my being able to go into a magical world of nature I am forced to take note of who is around me. Am I safe?

There have been enough tragedies that have happened to women in my life to make me weary. It does not help that a simple run just for me can easily turn into the unwanted objectification of my body as some idiot men yell at me from their car windows. It feels as if I cannot have even a little space in the world, which brings me back to my original thought.

The health care bill reinforces the idea that I as a woman cannot have a full right to my body. As a young woman in this current culture it is easy for me to sometimes feel like I cannot own my body and I cannot have space without it being infringed upon. Even so, I keep journeying along because I know I really do own my body and that I will be able to be present in space.

Being a woman means...

I’m a 23 year old woman having a bit of a quarter life crisis (I'm hoping for longevity). Crisis is good though as it provides a great opportunity for a meaningful and thoughtful transition. Transition where? Who knows. But while I’m actively transitioning my sister has decided that blogging would be good practice. As a fairly educated woman I have been trained to examine the meaning of my gender and my sex in daily life. I wonder about the messages we (the world) are constantly sending and how they are perceived.

Out of curiosity I decided to put google to the test. I googled women. The top results? Boring. Except for a blog from The New York Times “Women’s Day at the White House”.This definitely did not have a “Woohoo! Empower Women!” tone. I was and still am a President Obama hopeful. However, I am so not impressed by the acknowledgement of a glass ceiling. Maybe I should be. At least it is a start. Is my attitude a reflection of my generation?

So… I have decided to try to write a blog about women and my meaning making of womanhood. Mostly, I’ll examine the message of the day as perceived by me from various media sources and my own personal experiences. Hopefully my daily life will provide some other insights and I’ll take a breather to write about something else.

Don’t worry. I’m not some crazy young feminist from Vermont with dreadlocks using this as a forum to complain and then insist on hairy legs, veganism, and Ralph Nader. I am a feminist from Vermont. However, like lots of young women I cannot resist Sarah Jessica Parker, the season’s latest nail polish color (I only paint my toe nails), or Victoria's Secret.

Usually I would say “Today being a woman means”, but since I am backtracking a little bit I’ll write:

Yesterday being a woman meant…that there are limits thanks to the wonderful glass ceiling that the President can acknowledge. Hmm… the powerful recognize their power.