John Wick and the Rough Girl Era

I’m in my rough girl era. I feel like wanting to kick and scream and throw things.

Photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash

It’s wild out here. I can’t really afford to be in my soft girl era. As much as I want to. Every time I try to be soft I get run over and mowed down emotionally by others. Every time I try to be cute and adorable and want sweets and soft pillows and cat ears, I get knocked down.

I think I’ve been fighting to be in my soft girl era for years. I was in a soft girl era back in 2011. That was the last time I was soft. Right before college. Then I became a rough human wearing a soft girl mask. Not even a girl anymore. Not even a woman. Just a person. Feminity felt foreign to me, as it always had but it felt far from me.

I’ve been fighting to be soft. I’ve been fighting for a higher voice. I’ve been fighting to be cute my whole life. When I see my dark skin, my wide crazed Samuel L. Jackson in black snake moan eyes. When I see my Frieda Kahlo unibrow. When I see my chapped lips. When I see my bitten nails. I realize I am anything but soft. When I talk to others I realize I am anything but a princess. I have prince energy, even that of a broken king I’ve been told. I have a Napoleon complex. I’ve been told. That isn’t soft. That isn’t elegant.

The other day I ran through the forest barefoot. I took off my shoes in a forest therapy workshop and wanted to strip down naked and roll in the earth. I wanted to lose myself in the soil. I wanted to get poison oak in between my toes. I wanted to eat twigs and bark. I wanted to drink from the stream. I wanted to take a piss on some leaves. I kept trying to but I still wanted to hold it together. I wanted to be soft. I wanted to be cute and dainty. I wanted to be the woman my husband fell in love with. I don’t want to be this screeching possum that I actually am.

But I am.

I watched John Wick 4 today. I reveled in the movie. I loved it. I want Nunchucks now. I remember quitting martial arts when I was in the 4th grade because I wanted boys to like me. I remember stopping math, and science because they felt too boyish. I remember letting go of everything I loved video games, and friends for the sake of “the femme” whatever that means. By the eighth grade, I was a Lisa Frank…