loudandqueer

[loudandqueer]

Do you know, I could break beneath the weight

Of the goodness, love, I still carry for you

That I'd walk so far just to take

The injury of finally knowing you

Hozier, Unknown/nth

[loudandqueer]

I'm just a girl.

Maybe it starts with your first catcall on the street. Maybe it starts with your first period, your first bra or the first time you ask your parents to let you go out with your friends without supervision. I’m not quite sure, but I do know that once it starts, it doesn’t really end. You begin to notice, for example, your male friends’ behavior. And not in a sudden-crush-that-makes-me-aware-of-every-interaction way. It’s more about how he moves so freely, unburdened by the gaze of every adult or fellow teenager, who won’t judge if his skirt is too short, or he knows how to do make-up, or how he hangs out with too many men, or talks too much, or if he stuffs his bra, or, or, or…

You’re also overcome with a sudden existential dread. To be a woman is to perform, they say, and they are not wrong. You long for the days when you didn’t check what you ate at a family reunion. You long for when you didn’t cry every year on your birthday; for the time before you noticed how cruel the world had been to your mother and cower at the thought of suffering the same cruel fate, shouldering the same burdens.

And one day, you also become aware of your parents’ existence. Of course, they’ve always been there, but all of a sudden, their presence in your life has a weigh. Your mother becomes your greatest ally and your worst enemy. She’ll buy you that little black dress and whisper conspiratorially not to tell your father; but she’ll also tell you to mind your waist, so it still fits in a few years. And even when she doesn’t actually say anything, you’ll still watch the way she looks at herself in the mirror, how she never eats seconds, is always worried about her legs being waxed and buys every anti-wrinkle cream in existence. You begin to replicate those same harmful behaviors that you resent her for, you too tweeze every single eyebrow hair if you must, and decline dessert after dinner because that’s how you were raised, even if it was unintentional.

And just when you think that you’ve come to live with the harrowing, soul-draining experience of being a teenage-girl, it ends. Or it doesn’t. You turn 20, 25, 30, 48, 65 and yet it lingers. You’re still hyper-aware of your surroundings, you still watch how the men in your life are praised for carrying one third of the baggage you handle on a daily basis, you still feel the needle of the scale in the back of your brain every once in a while, and you still choose the loosest blouse and pants for dinner with your friends.

You realize people begin to sigh instead of smiling knowingly at your antics, so you joke. “I’m just a girl”, you say humorously when they judge your “obsession” with a certain artist. But it’s not a joke at all. You are just a girl, when you’re 23 and drowning out your birthday candles with your tears, when you walk behind your friends to check if they’ve leaked, when you use your brush as a microphone and belt out lyrics you relate to on a bone-deep level. Because when all is said and done, every Barbie doll you got for Christmas, every first kiss, every first drink and every friendship bracelet stay with you. It sticks to your skin and becomes a shared experience with every girl friend you make and leave behind. Thankfully, even if you feel like you are isolated and completely unrelatable, you’ll never be alone on that feeling, because there will always be someone else who knows what it’s like to be a teenage girl.

[loudandqueer]

I always have this strange feeling that I am this very old woman laying down about to die. You know, that my life is just her memories, or something.

Céline, Before Sunrise

[loudandqueer]

The things that I lost here, the people I knew

They got me surrounded for a mile or two

The car's in reverse, I'm grippin' the wheel

I'm back between villages and everything's still

The View Between Villages, Noah Kahan

[loudandqueer]

I’m not anyone, I’m just myself; wherever I am, I am something, and now

I’m something you can’t help.

Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

[loudandqueer]

You got your passion, you got your pride

But don't you know that only fools are satisfied?

Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true

Billy Joel, Vienna

[loudandqueer]

"I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night."

The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

[loudandqueer]

Never be so polite, you forget your power

Never wield such power, you forget to be polite.

Marjorie, Taylor Swift

[loudandqueer]

Where's the glory in repeating what others have done?

The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan

[loudandqueer]

So this is it, that's how it ends

I guess there's nothing more romantic than dying with your friends

And I'm not sorry for myself

I wouldn't wanna spend a minute loving anybody else

'Till Forever Falls Apart, Ashe & FINNEAS

[loudandqueer]

'Cause I carried on like the wayward son

And now through and through, I've come undone

And now I am just but the wayward man

What with my bloodshot eyes and my shaky hand

Hallucinogenics, Matt Maeson

[loudandqueer]

Don't wanna live as an untold story,

Rather go out in a blaze of glory.

Could Have Been Me, The Struts

[loudandqueer]

Throw yourself into the unknown

With pace and a fury defiant

Achilles Come Down, Gang of Youths

[loudandqueer]

We all make mistakes

But they're just stepping stones

To take us where we wanna go

It's never straight, no

Edge of Great, Julie and the Phantoms

[loudandqueer]

I know my value. Anyone else's opinion doesn't really matter.

Peggy Carter, Agent Carter

[loudandqueer]

If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.

Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

[loudandqueer]

One minute I'm on top of the world, then the next I'm at rock bottom.

Becky Albertalli, Simon vs the Homosapiens Agenda