Sunday, August 2, 2009

Britney Spears Might Have Been On to Something...

People have lots of definitions about what it means to be a woman. Getting your period, getting pregnant, enduring life-altering changes, having sex...and I've been through all these before 21. So why don't I feel like a woman? Why do I still feel like the little girl whose front teeth were always a little too big for her mouth, but chose to smile anyway? The loving daughter who thought my mother could do anything? Or that misled adolescent that fell in love with a guy who was just a little too old? I still have the urge to tell people that I'm 18 every once in a while. Here I am approaching that age-purgatory between 21 and 30, and mentally, high school seemed like yesterday. I am not butterfly nor caterpillar; not a girl, not yet a woman (circa late-90s Britney Spears). How does an "adult" react to situations such as these? Is there a such thing as early life crisis? Instead of buying a sportscar and getting Botox, should I hop on seesaw with a juice box and take a nap at 2 in the afternoon? In the movie "Stepbrothers", Will Ferrell queried to his psychiatrist how to be an adult. It was meant to be farce, but in me it struck a nerve. Droves of teens and college students desperately yearn to be "grown" and "21 bout theirs". What does that entail? Paying bills? Moving out of your parent's houses? To me it just sounds like a technology blinded generation running, barreling toward a life of monotony. Am I supposed to be excited to join this fleet of "women" where the only surefire ticket to success is an oxymoron--a scripted reality show? When did just being a girl become an insult?