teenage

Today is my birthday, August 29th. I've been alive for thirteen years as of six thirty AM this morning. I've been a writer for nearly five years. I've been a pagan for three. I've been a feminist for three. I've been a voice for three.

This is the anniversary of so much of who I am. Last year, I spent this day with Nan and my mother before I went to celebrate. Last year, I saw Melissa, my aunt now, for the second time. Last year, I got my first cell phone. (And broke it shortly thereafter). Last year on this day, I was joyful.

Two years ago on this day I would never have expected the move to be real. I was happy, I was having fun, I was probably partying. Daddy wasn't sick two years ago. It's my first birthday without him.

I was one of those girls who went to bed one night a Girl, and seemed to wake up the very next day with a giant set of breasts. My body developed early: I was the first girl in elementary school to have breasts, the first to try and figure out, alone, why I both wanted to hide them and have them seen. I was the first to be forced into a brassiere (and was really pissed about it), the first to have to fend off the strap being snapped behind me all the time.

What came with that was an unexpected bipolarity of being treated like a girl -- including the benefit and enjoyment of some level of androgyny, being allowed to play football afterschool with the boys, picking fights, having "buddies," not being groped -- and then being treated like a woman, but only in the respect of appearance and sexuality, as well as sexual objectivism. I didn't inherit any new rights with my changing body: of course, it was a woman's body, so there weren't any real rights to inherit.