On Being A Grown Ass Woman

Sweet friends, this makes two posts in as many days and damn, does it feel good to be a gangsta regular on my own GD blog. Now about this title: I literally use the phrase "I'm sorry, I'm a grown ass woman" every day (just ask my sister) -- every time I'm not actually sorry but am, in fact, incensed by the assumption that my youth makes me willing and able to do menial tasks for other people; or be jerked around by some (male) asshat who doesn't bother  to assess his own feelings and tries to wrap ME all up in that sh*t; OR that said youth automatically lumps me in with every other young person, and that I inherently share the same mindset as THE HIGH SCHOOL CHEERLEADING SQUAD WEARING BRAS AS SHIRTS with whom I shared a train to the R. Kelly concert, (oh, the irony!), or even that I must be a liberal, Obama-lovin' hippie freak because of my age... rather than because I have big girl thoughts that led to the intelligent formation of my personal moral and political beliefs.

Preach, girl. PREACH.

I have an email relationship with this brilliant mega-babe (you can be jealous), and we started discussing this article around the time I wrote about how sucky it is to be unwittingly labeled and treated as a manic pixie dream girl. The author of that article, Laurie Penny, together with my favorite advice columnist, Dear Sugar (née Cheryl Strayed), likes to talk at length about doing the neccessary work of becoming a grown person. You know: realizing you don't know sh*t, hours and hours of therapy; recognizing self destructive behaviors, figuring out where they came from and what sorts of feelings you're distracting yourself from by wrecking yourself like that over and over and over... that sort of stuff. I realized, in writing to Emma, that I used to be afraid of being a grown ass woman. And now I'm not.

Let me explain: in my dizzy juvenescence (WORD. THAT'S A WORD!), I was  putting off the work of productively questioning and accepting and loving myself the same way that I like to put off washing my sheets and writing freelance articles (#hireme). Rather than make some conscious choices about what I wanted out of life, it was easier for me to express my particular personhood through superficial means. My widespread messiness and sundry issues made me interesting. My terrible thinness made me unique. My weirdo aesthetic drew people toward me. And of course I had a solid character, bomb midwestern values and a freaking amazing education - my mom went above and beyond! But it's only in the past few years that I've begun to wrap my brain around how very little appearances inform who I really am; how intricate and delicate and thrilling a process it is to go about untangling my own puppet strings; and how totally sufficient I am. You know? I'll do, just as I am. I only really have to worry about pleasing myself... and making up for any mistakes I may have made in my wild, wayward girlhood two weeks ago.

All this to say, I feel like a grown ass woman lately. I'm done with all that kid stuff, you guys. Let's smoke some pipes and talk mutual funds Idk. Let's appreciate how far we've come and worry less about how much further we have to go. Let's respect each other for the sparkly souls we are. Okay?

Are you an adult? Do you want to be an adult? I hear it's worth trying.

Smooches,
Rose