i believe my heart is a gilded cage for the innocence that girlhood feigns, and i cannot let it out. there are too many things in my life that i lost at a young age. i had so many dreams shattered beyond comparison before the age of ten. i think my girlhood is suffering a slow death, and although that might seem like the ideal and normal way for one to lose this childlike hopefulness and undeniable state of wonder and awe, it is still hard to watch. it is as though you’re watching a candle die out, flickering and flickering and flickering until it is just the metal end of the wick.
the worst part is, you don’t want to blow it out. you want to watch the candle burn as long as it can, to feel the heat of the flame and indulge in radiant shades of blue and orange, to watch smoke and fragrant steam evaporate into thin air. you don’t want to blow out a blaze, a gorgeous symphony of everything that is girlhood– giggles, braided hair, ribbons, stuffed animals and frilly dresses.
girlhood is waking up at 7 AM and dragging your parents down the stairs to open gifts. girlhood is looking for proof santa claus was there and finding a powdered sugar fingerprint on the doorframe from the cookies. girlhood is finding the dolls you wanted under the tree and ripping the box to shreds to hold them with powdered sugar fingers.
the death of girlhood is finding the receipt for the dolls in the kitchen by 9 AM.
the death of girlhood is pretending it never happened in order to cling onto some of the magic, but everything begins to unravel before you.
as tragic as the death of girlhood sounds from me, a part of me wonders if girlhood grows up. maybe it goes from trading candy on the porch after trick or treating to doing your best friend’s hair before a night out. maybe it goes from gushing about celebrity crushes to contemplating how to best get revenge on your latest love affair.
maybe girlhood doesn’t die. maybe it evolves. maybe girlhood only survives because we yearn for it, because we refuse to let it go, because we try to compensate for it with things that feel like we denied ourselves earlier. pop music, the color pink, unshaved legs, romance novels and skirts. all the things that made us feel less cool then are the things that free us now.
so yes, girlhood goes somewhere, but maybe it doesn’t die. maybe it just grows up, or goes away. Girlhood does, however, come back for us every now and then.