I Am A Girl

Sights by Russell Canceran

There is a girl. She is twenty-something years old, and she is brilliant. She is confident. She is loud. She’s the first to speak in a room and, sometimes, she’s the last to leave it. She not only isn't afraid of failure, she embraces it. She welcomes it. She lets her nail polish go chipped, and her lipstick smudged red and bold. She sometimes worries about her concealer creasing, but she also worries about abortion rights. She watches makeup videos and cries over political speeches in her free time. She is unapologetic in her choices. She will not say sorry for her preferences. She is a woman, hear her roar. She is me. Except that she isn’t. She is so much more. She is a version of me, hidden and pushed back. She comes out, sometimes frequently, but she never stays. Insecurities get the best of me. My fear of walking late at night alone trumps my desire to let her surface. My realization that I will have to work ten times harder, speak ten times louder, seems to hinder the realization that I have the ability to work that hard, to speak that loud, to do that much more. My fear of making twenty cents less clouds my ability and my strength to lessen that gap.

There is a girl. She is twenty-something years old, and she is brilliant. Why isn't she me?