I am just a kid and my family and I are walking to the playground near my elementary school. We are at the top of the hill that overlooks the baseball fields, the volleyball court, the squat one-story school building. Just beyond the school you can see the tops of the jungle gym equipment and the trees that lead to the murky pond nearby. I am walking my dog, who I insisted on bringing with us even though he is poorly behaved, constantly yanking on the leash and chasing imaginary birds. As we round the crest of the field there is a loud crash, the unmistakable sound of metal smashing skin. Suddenly, my mother is running. I can’t remember ever seeing her run before, but now she is bolting towards the noise.
“We fully expect you to make big mistakes your first few months here,” my boss told me on my first day of work, after I successfully completed my initiation by putting together my own rolling chair. I am not used to making mistakes–no–I am not used to making mistakes and having them mean something. I think that’s what sets the “real world” apart from the life we knew in college; this isn’t a rehearsal anymore, the curtain’s been pulled back. Now, everything counts in a way beyond emotionality. Everything counts in a way that can be mathematically measured.
I have made plenty of mistakes that have meant something, but perhaps only to me, their impact manifesting as a dark, throbbing coil behind my breastbone. Often times they start with the phrase, “I’m not going to sleep with you. I am not that kind of girl.” The truth is that I have no idea what kind of girl I am. The truth is that the girl I am seems to change as suddenly as the weather patterns. A confident version of me might saunter in with the fog, only to leave again by daylight. I have wasted a lot of energy trying to convince the men I’ve loved that I didn’t love them at all, that I ‘didn’t believe’ in marriage and that ‘kids are just a vanity project,’ but it’s exhausting pretending to believe all of these things, and I am not young enough anymore to feel that pretending is worth the effort. I don’t know what kind of girl I am, but at this point I like to think I know what kind of girl I am not.