Chop Wood, Carry Water

Some girl wants to be Barbie when she grows up. The place card in the middle of my table tells me so. A pain in my chest resonates. It’s a doll. She wants to be a plastic doll? It feels like nothing and everything all at once. It subsides when I realize that this isn’t MY girl. My girl wants to be a doctor when she grows up. She wants to help babies and mothers. My girl doesn’t play with Barbies much. My girl owns a stethoscope. Some girl is different than my girl.

Some girl will be sent home from school today for wearing a shirt that exposes her shoulder. Some girl knows better, probably. She knows that her body is a distraction and doesn’t really belong to her. Some girl might try to explain her outfit, but most girls will change their clothes before challenging a belief. Some girl feels familiar to me , like a distant version of myself, but certainly she is more deliberate and malicious than I ever was. Some girl is different than I was as a girl.

Some girl will be sexually assaulted tonight on a campus near you. Well, many girls will be in fact. Some girl will probably be drinking. Some girl will possibly be flirting.  She was probably confused. Some girl tends to get confused easily. Maybe 24% of some girls are confused. One thing is for certain, some girl is different than most girls.

Some girl will be catcalled on her walk around the block today. She’ll smile in response, maybe out of nervousness, which is not what my friends or family would do. Some girl might have prevented this if she chose a better path or walked at different times. Some girl is probably alright with it because she smiled. Some girl is different than girls that I know.

Some girl sleeps down the hall from me. Some girl sleeps in the bed next to you. Some girl follows me through alleyways. Some girl shows up on my doorstep. Some girl laughs when I laugh and cries when I cry. Some girl looks familiar to you. Some girl looks familiar to me. Some girl lives in my head and wakes in my daughter and won’t separate herself from any of us no matter how much we want to believe that some girl is different than this girl, or that girl, or any girl that we know.

The pain that we each should feel in our chest is deserved. It isn’t supposed to subside. Some girl wants to be Barbie when she grows up. That belongs to all of us, just like the rest of this mess that we are putting some girl through.

Some girl refuses to believe that not one bit of our complacency is justified by these things happening to some girl. 

This girl hopes that we–herself included– can stop labeling some girl, start embracing all girls, and get to the real work that needs to be done.  Some girl is counting on us.