Am I Really No Longer A Girl?

Okay, it could be that I’m no longer a girl. Maybe I’m an actual woman. I know that in many ways I’ve been a woman for about ten years. In the eyes of Mother Nature I’ve had womanhood for about a decade. At the time there wasn’t much else that suggested I was a woman, but as far as my womanly ability to procreate, I became a woman long ago.

Legally I have been a woman for about five years. I am now twenty-three and I could have gotten married without parental consent on my eighteenth birthday. It was also the first time I was of legal voting age. When I was eighteen, I thought of myself as more a woman than I did when I was thirteen, but I still did not consider myself a woman. Heck, I still hadn’t graduated high school or even gone to the prom.

But this is the first summer I did not want to be tanned. Any tan I have is really an accident. This summer I have used a lot of sunscreen. These days I rarely chew gum. When I grocery shop, I sometimes look at the ingredients listed on packages. I do not want to put a lot of salt, sugar, or cholesterol in my diet. When I was nineteen I did not worry about such things, now I do. What’s up with that?

Not long ago I sighed for ownership of my own car. I couldn’t have dreamed of that when I was fifteen. And when I drive I drive more slowly than I did when I was seventeen or eighteen. And now I use my turn signal most of the time. I drink coffee, just like my father does. I have even developed a taste for red wine.

I still do not have any strong desire to get married and start a family, but yet I do not like the sound of “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” anymore. The terms have come to sound too adolescent. I guess the guy in my life will need to be more than a boyfriend, but less than a husband. That sounds like that might be pretty tricky. 

Anyway, I just thought I’d throw this idiotic revelation into my blog while it was on my mind, and I have the time. I know tomorrow I’m going to be busy getting my car’s oil changed. Oh my god, see? Since when do I care about something like oil?