Girlhood, So Confusing

"Hot Girl Summer is SO over." - Me, when I lie

Is it still “girlhood” if you’re a married 28 year old homeowner with a full time job? Asking for a friend. Who is me. I am the friend. 

Substack made me realize that I Am Old. The majority of my feed ranges from writers who are in the 19-24 year old range. Don’t get me wrong, I love reading the publications of the young women here who are sharing the experiences of their lives, which are often defined by tumultuous change and an unsteady heart. But, I found, with a little shock, that I can’t relate to their writing anymore. If anything, when I read I’m hit with the nostalgia of those experiences, remembering my past self and navigating those familiar worlds. I have to stop myself from commenting on posts by younger people with “It gets better, trust me”, because who the fuck wants to hear that when you’re young and lost?

The funny thing about aging is that at a certain point post-frontal lobe development, you don’t start to feel older. I’m 28, but I feel 24, just with more financial stability, life experience, and back pain. I spent a lot of my summer frolicing around with my female friends doing very classic, instagrammy, girlhood activities. We got fancy cocktails, we read romance novels, and we did crafts together. Approximately one billion polaroid photos were taken as we made charcuterie boards and curled each other’s hair. We talked about girlhood and how important it was to be surrounded by other girls. 

Hot girl, cool girl, coquette craft girls - it was a fantasy that was interrupted by my dad’s passing this summer (not very demure, not very mindful). Work started up again a few weeks later. This past week, I was hit with an epiphany. I was sitting on my couch, scrolling through the Substack feeds of my younger peers when I realized - I might not relate to girlhood anymore.

(Now, before we dig into my identity crisis, I want to make it clear that I unequivocally advocate for people to live their truth, and aspects of “girlhood” and “womanhood” are often defined by gender stereotyping. Let’s not forget that this essay is about me and my identity crisis, I am not talking about you! Do what you want.)

(But, anyway, back to me.)

Within girlhood, there is an option to tropify your life in a way that transforms serious feelings into something bouncy and light. Why label yourself as clinically depressed when you can be a Sad Girl? Instead of struggling with feelings of unrelatability to your peers and friends, be a Cool Girl! Mask your insecurities by claiming to be a Hot Girl - Hot Girls shit, Hot Girls crash their car into a curb, and Hot Girls spend money they don’t have. If all else fails, you can take your lack of relatability to these tropes of girlhood and simply become Not Like Other Girls.

Womanhood has no fun tropes, unless you count the classic subtypes of womanhood: wife, mother, spinster, and wise old crone. These subtypes are often defined through tight expectations that focus on what you should be and should do rather than how you are as an individual. A wife should be compliant. A mother should be nurturing and self sacrificing. A spinster is ugly, lonely, and an owner of 10 cats. The crone imparts knowledge and love onto others, but her existence is to impart her knowledge on the younger generation. To break these expectations comes with judgment from others, for example, if a mother were to go on a vacation and not bring her children (gasp, how dare she!). 

What is that secret third thing? When your house is Sad Beige Millennial, but with stuffed animal decor? Or when you know how to hire an estate lawyer, but you’re still scared to do your taxes? When you present at work meetings, but you also throw raging Halloween parties? When you can help your friends navigate how to increase their credit score, but also stumble home with them after a boozy brunch? Or how do you fight the notion that girlhood and womanhood have to be so singularly defined? Is there a middle ground between enjoying the fun that comes with girlhood and all its tropes, while also knowing that many of the core aspects of girlhood are unrelatable? 

I wish I had answers for you, but the truth is that I don’t. I still bemoan “I’m just a girl” to my husband when he brings up getting the car’s oil changed. But I cringe a little when I see Thought Daughter content on the internet. What I do know is that the third thing does exist somewhere, and we navigate it by testing the waters in our experiences. I will always love dicking around with my friends and experiencing girlhood with them. I may someday realize that I want to get rid of the stuffed animals around the house, but it doesn’t mean I’ll stop myself from buying one if I’ve had a bad day. I have replaced the string lights on my first apartment with actual artwork, but I still make sure I have band posters (they’re just framed now). Life's too short to take things so seriously, we need to play and poke around and do something cringe in order to figure out what adulthood looks like for us individually.

If you’re living your best Gamer Girl, Hot Girl, Coquettish life - I salute you, go forth with your Pinterest board and change the world. If you are in the confines of a womanhood subtype, I hope you find peace there and that you don’t let any bitch tell you the right way to be a wife, a mother, or whatever else you dream to be. If you’re like me, confused as hell and 28 years old, ugh, hello, doesn’t this suck so much and feel literally so stupid at the same time? Tell me something cringey you did today, or something that you discovered that felt like your correct version of adulthood. Let’s navigate the secret third thing, maybe we can work together to define it.