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I consider myself a feminist.

Currently living in Oregon, this is a good thing. Back home in Kansas, not so much. A majority of conservatives from my small town have been “taking back” their place as a woman. I’m not sure if that makes sense. 

After the Women’s March, I felt empowered. I felt proud. I felt awesome. My Midwest counterparts did not. They felt like the marchers (especially the ones wearing the vagina hats) were a disgrace to women everywhere. What they did wasn’t ladylike; it wasn’t feminine. 

As a feminist, I don’t believe that feminists are unladylike or that they hate men. I think that’s a sad misconception that some women hold. We just want equality. I don’t want to be expected to clean the house and make sandwiches, but at the same time, I enjoy doing those things for my boyfriend. He doesn’t expect it, but he appreciates it. I also don’t want to be expected to burn my bra or pursue a career so hard that I leave my family behind. That’s not necessarily what feminism is to me. 

I just want to stand in solidarity with my fellow woman, to show her and others that we all deserve equality whether that comes in the form of employment or healthcare or judgment in the workplace. 

Sometimes I genuinely struggle with all things girly. 

I have the urge to do nice makeup, but the tools are so effing expensive that I know I shouldn’t spend my money on that when I could spend it elsewhere. Also, I would have to watch so many tutorials now that makeup is getting so intense. Like highlighting. Why is there green on a palette for your face? I’m so freaking lost. And brows? Last I heard, mine were too gnarly and needed to be tamed, but now they’re called “bold.” I’m cool with it. Plucking sucks. I’m also on the fence about makeup. It’s pretty bad for your pores and I want to look like myself. Kudos to the girls that can contour though. It’s freaking beautiful, and you’re goddesses.

Then there’s shaving. My hair is dark brown/black. Like all over my body. I have just enough ethnic blood to make my hair a problem. When I was in high school, someone made fun of a girl for having a happy trail of hair under her belly button. I freaked out. Like, is being skinny not enough? Now I have to worry about small hairs? So I shaved it. Ugh. Stupid 15-year-old me. Never shave something unless you want to deal with it forever. Oh well. I felt alone and terrified and so self-conscious about it until a little over a year ago. I was getting ready for a wedding with my fellow bridesmaids. One was a cute little blond girl, but one was Pakistani and the other was Lebanese. The latter was plucking little hairs from between her boobs while the former complained about her sideburns. I wasn’t alone in my weird body hairs. It turns out that shit is pretty normal and mammals have hair. Who knew?

One part of being a lady that I do ascribe to? Wearing fucking dresses, man. Now that maxi-dresses and skirts are a thing, I can pretty much enjoy the comfort of sweatpants with a breeze and still look presentable. Plus, long skirts and dresses mean you don’t have to worry about flashing your cooter to the world. It was more important when I was teaching, but it’s still helpful in my everyday life. I have a long torso and short legs, so I was happy that I could now buy dresses that didn’t look scandalous because my buttcheeks hung out the bottom. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I wore pants that weren’t leggings. Another positive for maxi dresses (as if we didn’t have enough): no leg shaving. 

I feel like my ovaries have been on fire for the last few weeks. Okay, months. I work in the restaurant industry, so I see the good, the bad, and the ugly of day to day life. I was a bartender until recently. Now, as a manager, I only get to deal with the best of the best or the worst of the worst, but that’s another story.

I normally work days or brunches, so we see a lot of families, many of whom have young children. As a server, i would cringe when a family with young kids would sit in my section. Oh great, a table full of crayons dunked in untouched milk, smashed french fries, and mac and cheese smeared all over the table. Not to mention the lower ticket price (I was kind of a bitch when I was serving). As a manager, I still have to clean up messes, but watching the kids from afar has awoken something in my womb that is pretty fucking terrifying. 

I. Fucking. Love. Kids.

I always knew I wanted kids. Growing up, I thought I would be married, have a house, and be pregnant by the time I was 22. As a 24 year old, still renting and not planning on getting married, that is laughable. Like literally LOL laughable. My life is so not put together enough to have kids. I can barely keep my shit together enough to remember to feed and run with my dog. I’m a mess. My boyfriend is a mess. There’s no way we could create something that wouldn’t be a mess. But what if we could?

What would happen if I accidentally got pregnant? A few months ago I had a dream that I was pregnant and had to tell my boyfriend. Dream boyfriend was cool about it. He loves me. He would do anything for me, whatever we needed for this new family. To him, the only solution was to go back to building water towers, which he did while we were in college. He could work for a summer to pay for a whole year of tuition. It was good money, but he never wanted that to be his life. In my dream, I could see the hurt in his eyes. He felt like I had betrayed us and the life we were building. He even hated me just a little bit for it. It had been both of us that created this, but he would have to sacrifice his dreams to be the breadwinner. 

I woke up and fucking bawled my eyes out. Real life boyfriend was just as supportive and promised that he wouldn’t hate me if any of that happened, but he would want to go back to building water towers to pay for expenses. Needless to say, terrifying dreams are excellent birth control.

But still, seeing kids in the restaurant makes my eyes well up with tears of joy. They’re just so fucking innocent and cute and funny and naughty. Recently, there was a little girl that affected me so much more than the others. She was only two, but so talkative. She told me how she used to be a unicorn, but she’s a human now. Was I a human? She liked the thing on my head. She really liked the things in my ears. When she grew up she would have things in her ears, too. At first, I couldn’t figure out why my heart ached so much for this child. Then it hit me. She looked like me. She acted like I did as a kid. 

I flew home for the funeral (thanks Dad), and returned to Oregon a few days later. During my time away, my dog had been sick. She had eaten something and couldn’t pass it. Last Friday she went into emergency surgery, and it was terrifying. We didn’t realize how dangerous it could have been for her had we waited any longer. She’s like my child. I don’t say that lightly. I have never been pregnant. I’m not ready for human babies yet, but my body is urging me, compelling me to create an offspring. I’ve offset my love and my maternal instincts onto this 90-pound barking baby, and I love her so much that sometimes it hurts.

Long story short, the vet calls to say she made it through surgery. The little brat had eaten a freaking tampon and it had gotten lodged in her small intestine. It wasn’t coming out. Now that I knew she was going to be okay, I could allow myself to be slightly angry with the little shit for digging in the trash.

These last few days have been filled with long naps, slow moves, and small meals. At first she wouldn’t eat dog food, so we’ve been giving her gourmet meals of rice and chicken and broth. Last night I heard her munching on her dog food, so now I know she’s just being spoiled. The worst part? Trying to give her her medication. When we first brought her home, she wouldn’t voluntarily eat anything so we couldn’t hide the pills in food. We’ve resorted to crushing them, putting them in peanut butter, and putting the peanut butter on the roof of her mouth forcing her to swallow most of it.

I hate doing it. She chomps her teeth down, I’m not strong enough to pull her mouth open. But mostly I hate that it reminds me of the last time I saw my grandpa. He couldn’t swallow his pills anymore so they had to crush them and mix them with apple sauce. Although he tried to appease the nurses, his face betrayed him. It was foul and bitter to eat pills like this. The last time I saw him, he began refusing to take them; it wasn’t worth it to him.

But it’s worth it to feed them to Rhea. She’s getting better. She’s not ready to go yet. She has so many things left to experience. Deep breath. 

I’ve been hearing a song on the radio saying, “I don’t know what you’ve been told, but this girl right here’s gonna rule the world. No, I won’t sit still, look pretty.” I want it to be my anthem. I want to blast it from my car and in my home and from a boombox on my shoulder wherever I walk. I want this song to be so much more than it is. But it’s just not there for me.

The writer says that she won’t be a “puppet,” or a “barbie,” or a trophy wife, etc., but she never says what she WILL be. Is she going to be a financial mogul? Is she Hillary attempting to become president? Is she an Olympic boxer competing in what used to be a men’s-only event? What is she doing while she’s not sitting still?

Regardless of my qualms with this song, this mantra resonates with me. I work in the restaurant industry and have slowly been working my way into management. I’m taking night shifts that nobody wants, I’m giving up tables for support positions, I’m doing everything I can to make the restaurant run smoothly, and the owner has seen that. He’s complimented me on my work ethic and my table-side manner. I work in the office running payroll and paying bills. I’m working my ass off to make a career out of this.

Fast forward to last night. I’m having a drink with two of my coworkers, one is a late 20′s female teacher and the other is an early 30′s male. He’s our floor manager for the night, but he’s complaining about how the two of us women have a much better rhetoric with our boss. He doesn’t mention our work ethic. He doesn’t mention our personalities. He doesn’t mention the fact that both of us have degrees in teaching, allowing us to connect with the owner (who also has a teaching degree). He says it’s because we’re pretty. 

Are you fucking kidding me? 

We run circles around this guy on the floor. We bust our asses, and we’re good at our jobs, but he has the nerve to say that the boss likes us because we’re pretty. 

I will not accept that.

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