A More Complicated Butterfly

What makes a woman a woman? How does she know when she is separated from the girls? When is it okay to call her "hot" or "beautiful" instead of "cute" or "pretty"? Is it her age? When she gets her period or loses her virginity? Has she reached "womanhood" when she has to shave her legs? Maybe it's when she is treated like a woman instead of a girl? Maybe it's when she looks in the mirror and realizes it for herself? When she looks back on her life thus far, analyzing every scenario, hardship, and triumph, only to realize that she is no longer a little girl? Or, maybe it's not one of these things, but more than one? Or none of them at all? It all depends on the girl transforming into a woman. Girls are not caterpillars who spin their cocoons for a set amount of time to emerge a marvelous, transformed butterfly. We are much more complex than that. And I am no exception.

I was twenty-two years old when I started my first adult relationship. He was three years older than me, previously married and divorced — or so he said — had his own house and a good job. When our relationship started I was still a girl finding her way in the art of being in an adult relationship. I had ideas of what I wanted and what things were supposed to be like, but I had never been with anyone who already knew. All the other boys were guessing right alongside me, until him; at twenty-two, I found someone who knew how to treat me like a woman and therefore did.

I'm not sure how to explain what I mean, but I will do my best. When you are a girl, you expect certain things from a boy; candies on Valentines Day, to go out on dates all the time and be doted upon. To be called a "cute" couple and take it as a compliment. But when he treated me like a woman, he did more than that. He made me search myself. He asked me intimate questions that made me think about how I honestly thought and felt. He encouraged me to have my own voice and supported it. When we went on dates, they weren't just out to eat. We went to festivals and parks. We went for walks so that we could talk and be out of the house. We went shopping together so that we could cook dinner together. We made intimate moments out of little things. He treated me with respect and dignity. He told me how he would support me and take care of me through whatever I needed. That he would be there for me no matter what. These were things I had never experienced.

He called me a woman. When he complimented me, he called me a woman. When he introduced me, he called me a woman. When he talked about me to other people, he called me... a woman. For the first time in my life, I started to feel less like a little girl and more like a developed, complex, sophisticated, strong, woman. But I hadn't gotten there completely.

A few months later, he and I split up. Not because I wanted to, but because he decided that he was in love with my best friend. Oh, and she was in love with him. Of course. Despite the heartbreak of my relationship with the first man I had ever been with, it was my relationship with my best friend I was in fear of losing. She said she felt the same, and we tried to keep our friendship afloat with what little was left.

It was with this friend at The Grand Lux Café for a tense lunch that I finally realized and accepted I was no longer a girl, but a woman.

We were seated in a booth in the bar area at the front of the establishment. Somewhere we had never sat before but were excited and felt a little more adult being around people who were drinking at two in the afternoon. My friend and I were enjoying our lunch and conversation to the best of our ability when I excused myself to the restroom. As I said before, this encounter was not a "normal" lunch. There was a lot of tension and animosity at the table. I didn't go to the restroom to pee, I went to breathe for a minute.

As is what happens to all of us, once we’re there, we have to go. While washing my hands and glancing at myself in the mirror as one does, I stopped and really looked at myself for a second. I’m not sure what compelled me to carry on with this, but I dried my hands, stood back a little from the sink so that the whole mid to upper half of my body could be seen in the full wall mirror. I examined myself. Not checking myself out, but examining my features. My stomach, thighs, breasts, shoulders, hands, arms, and face. I really... really looked at me. I took notice of all the changes in my body and movements. I realized then and there in that bathroom that I wasn't a girl anymore. I was a woman. Sure, I was still in college, but I had a full-time job that allowed me to pay my own way through. I had sex with a man. Not a boy who didn't know what he was doing and no control himself. But a man. Granted, this man was a player, but he was still a man. I had been through heartache and strife. I had overcome more in my life thus far than I ever thought possible. I wasn’t a weak little girl. I was a strong, independent, beautiful woman.