waiting for special.

I’ve always aired on the side of dramatic, obviously. The kind of dramatic that just wanted to make everything seem bigger and brighter and better. To me, the dramatics embodied femininity. And all I’ve ever wanted to be was a woman, not a girl, but a woman.

I distinctly remember waking up on the morning of my thirteenth birthday and immediately rushing to the bathroom to see if I had finally started my period for the first time. Even just thinking about it now, I can remember how excited I was. I also remember being equally as devastated when I looked down and everything was as it always had been. No bright red flag to prove that I was a woman, no vivacious curves to flaunt. Nada. I was absolutely crushed, Judy Bloom, my mom, Seventeen Magazine… they all told me “just wait till you’re a teenager.” Well, I had waited. I was a teenager, damnit! Where was the evidence?

I also distinctly remember being 14 sitting in the front seat of my mom’s car and longingly staring out the window thinking, “I can’t wait till I’m 16.” For no particular reason at all, just that 16 sounded womanly and mature. 16 sounded like the opening credits in every feel good movie and every high school cliche. 16 felt like I probably drove a pale yellow Volkswagen beetle and had my very own promposal in the auditorium. 16 was obviously definitely a woman.

Don’t beg me to start on my virginity, or sex in general. I’m sure you can guess at this point anyway. But I never wanted to be a virgin, I was itching not to be a virgin. Buuuuut being a virgin also made me special. I’d seen the movies, I knew what a sacred little gift it was to pawn it over. How much you were yearned for when you still held the gift, and how easily you were tossed around after you gave it away. So even as I was begging to gift it, there wasn’t anybody around to take it off my hands. Cue the college freshmen virgin, and the personality trait I’d obnoxiously adopted once those around me started to find out. But still, there’s no brighter flashing neon sign signaling “Woman,” than losing your virginity. 

Here’s the thing about these stories, I was always always alwaysss waiting. For the life of me I was never content. When I finally started my period at 14, nothing happened. There was no glitter raining down from the heavens, no one looked at me and said “Ah! There she is! The woman.” When I was 16, nothing happened. No super secret surprise sweet 16. No army of 16 year old boys pounding down my front door to wish me the best day and shower me in compliments revolving around my womanhood.  When I lost my virginity, surprise! Nothing happened. Just like my mom had asked, the weekend after it happened and unprompted I’d gushed out the words, “Well, was it all the rainbows and butterflies you thought it’d be?” Again, nada. 

Even though every scenario I’d strategically fantasized, down to what the weather would be like when it happened, never came true; I still always found myself shocked and confused. I never anticipated the let down, not once. Consequently, the sting of disappointment never lessened either. See what I mean when I say I’m dramatic?

This sword was absolutely double sided and that did nothing but contribute to the obscene altered reality I was convinced I lived in. From the moment my mom found out I was in her womb I was told I was special. And I know what you’re thinking, every baby is told their special. I get it, really I do. But let me tell you what the problem with my brain is, even as I write this now, I still wholeheartedly believe that I am more special than you. Call me a narcissist, I don’t know. Call me delusional, absolutely. But from the time of childhood, every person I’d ever known whispered proclamations of specialness in my ear. And I always believed them. It wasn’t even that they had to convince me, but rather that I could confirm they were right, without a doubt in my special little head. 

My mom called it my power. She’d always told me that once I believed it, really believed it, I’d be able to turn it on like a switch. Instead of it just slipping out unprompted at the most random moments. And I believed her. And maybe that’s where I was stunted. I was always expecting special. But special is only special when you least expect it and can’t see it coming. Unfortunately for me, I was always looking, always waiting for it. And maybe that’s why it never came. Not in a real way. Not in the way it looked when I was doing the looking. When you believe you’re special, there’s no way to believe anything other than that special things will happen to you. And when special things don’t, I mean seriously, talk about a shifted reality.

She just made it so easy to believe! Even easier to embody. Because I’d seen it work in action, I’d felt it happen with my own two hands and bleeding heart. Like, actually. For as isolated as I felt in the day to day of my life, I knew people were drawn to me like a magnet. I felt it the most with strangers, I’d get this feeling behind my eyes almost like they were glowing and suddenly it was like they were just in my grasp. Like there was some hazy fog stretching between us, that if I had to paint it it’d be cotton candy pink, and I could reach out and slide up against it like a whisper in the breeze or a fingernail swirling on skin. Delusional, remember?

I had to be able to graph special, to understand it’s ins and outs, to write the code and copy on it, create the sliding grading scale of what’s special and what isn’t. And what better way to start than by a timeline? So when special and romanticized milestones started to near, I was able to check it off and confirm how special I was. This is where it gets a bit tricky, the special milestones were coming and going, but they were only (mildly discouraging) milestones and nothing special. My period? I’m still a little heart broken over it. My 16th birthday? Salt in the wound. My virginity? Jesus Christ. 

Along with being dramatic and special, I’m also acutely self aware. Honestly, it’s a blessing and a curse. A blessing because, thank god I can at least understand my brain, and a curse because… I mean you read everything above. I’m a mess. A special mess. I’m still waiting for special, I have no patience to speak of and never have, but I do have an ungodly amount of perseverance. Maybe it’s stubbornness, who knows. But whatever it is, it hasn’t shattered my unwavering belief. Instead, it’s had quite the opposite effect. Because I’m also wildly convinced that this is truthfully my hero origin story. That the special is going to be so overwhelmingly big and bright. The best ever. Whatever it is, I’m undoubtedly sure of it.