Just a girl...

Just a girl... or the excuses we make?

Today I'm thinking of things. Wondering spent upon wondering that's produced the next piece although this isn't it and it's not the thing that I'd kept back. And although I wonder the same as you why it's been held back that isn't the important thing. Then this starts me wondering why we hold back anything? 

We hold back things because we aren't ready. To make excuses. It is human nature to make excuses. It is a woman’s nature to resist until the absolute point of break until there are no excuses we can make.

As I'm letting my mind wander and wonder somewhere I'm reminded of the things our mother's tell us as girls. Because there are things that our mothers tell us simply by being girls. And sometimes these things can sell us short as women if we let them. Things like excuses that hold us back. And being “just a girl” is one of them.

Whenever I think of that particular excuse I think of that No Doubt song. You know the one. “Just a girl” where she's singing about out all those things that limit us as girls and as women. All those things imposed upon on us by someone else. And we let those things slide… until we are ready to stop holding back and making excuses. To each in her own time…

A friend tells me how to live the same way she tells her daughter. And I enjoy our conversations about living because she makes no excuses. Her daughter is 7 years younger than me. It's an odd thing when you think my older age makes me any wiser than her daughter. It's an even odder thing because I felt wiser when I was younger than her daughter.

When my friend tells me of her daughter’s engagement, I know she’s not telling me its time I get engaged. She simply wants to know if there’s someone I wouldn’t mind getting engaged to.

I am not marrying the stranger in front of me in the grocery store at 5. Am I? Let’s hope we have something in common. 

At present being a girl means so many different things than it used to. You can cut off your hair. You can wear jeans instead of dresses if you please. You can stay single or you can marry. Ultimately you can work and live as you choose. There is no need for apology in being a woman.

So when I hear a woman say “I can’t because my mother told me…” I wonder how much of her life is based on what her mother told her not to do. Then I wonder how much of her life is based on what other people tell her not to do. What kind of life is lived in the middle of excuses?

Upon this thought I think of another friend who continues to remind others about people living on the edge who don’t make excuses. They simply are and I can’t think of a better way to continue to live.

Why worry when it’s already happened?

Being "just a girl" isn't an excuse. It can't be. It's the saddest excuse I can think of for any woman.

It's not our mothers faults. Nor is it theirs. It's the same line of thinking that they've passed down generation after generation without question. A lot of the time these are things that are supposed to protect us. A lot of the time these things that protect us... aren't always true. Of all the things women tell each other you might think it would be something that is true.

-m.