Last Thursday, I settled into bed for the last time as a teenage girl. I slept soundly with pastel pom-poms and soft fairy lights strung above me, a stuffed yellow dog tucked beside me under my peach-patterned comforter. I woke up Friday no longer ablaze at 19, but suddenly 20 before the morning sun. As I slipped on my favorite signet ring, I examined its engraved disco ball and thought, “I should probably be glad.” Glad to be growing up, to be leaving one phase of life and entering another. But instead I felt melancholic, like I had somehow lost a fundamental part of myself. I hardly remembered what it was like to not be a teenage girl.
I didn’t know where my girlhood had gone.
Maybe it was stolen from me, piece by piece. By divorce and failure and belittlement. Or perhaps by shame and guilt and terror. A little bit here, a little bit there. By being made to feel that my body was not my own. By trusting so wholeheartedly that grief was inevitable. Until I was drained of it.
Maybe it was freely given away, in harsh words and pointless lies and brash decisions. It could have slipped through my fingers, every act of cruelty or rebellion or anger loosening my grip. I could have lost sight of it, thrown it out the car window into the river below.
Maybe it is hiding in the heavy wooden chest in my childhood bedroom. It could be nestled between dried flowers pressed in parchment and scribbled notes chronicling friendships past. It could be behind the vinyl doll wearing just one shoe or the fading Polaroid pictures.
But I’m starting to think girlhood is not something I can rid myself of, willingly or not.
Girlhood is not material. It doesn’t matter that one day I’ll wear butterfly clips in my hair for the last time. Or that eventually my favorite feathered party dress will be packed into a cardboard box and my beloved heart-buckled boots will be too worn to wear. Or that the shiny lipgloss I have in five different shades of red will expire and dry out.
Girlhood is experiential. It’s swapping secrets at 2 a.m. as your eyes start drooping. It’s crying alone in your car and hoping the redness tones down by the time you finally have to go inside. It’s crowding in front of a bathroom mirror with your two best friends, borrowing necklaces and zipping up each other’s dresses. It’s feeling emotions so strong you don’t know how to handle it. It’s writing lovelorn diary entries and hoping one day they’ll turn lovesick.
Youth, innocence and idealism. Traits so intrinsically tied to girlhood that it can be hard to separate them. Traits we idolize so much that their loss can feel fatal. But they do not define what girlhood means. They are not some tokens for others to judge your worth on. Girlhood is life-changing friendship, overwhelming joy and excruciating sadness. It is everything that makes life both beautiful and challenging.
I’ll never be a teenage girl again, but that’s okay. My girlhood will always be mine.