I Am Woman Hear Me Roar

How do you know when you're fully grown up?
I stopped growing at 14; I've been confidently 5'6.5" since 9th grade.
I was legally an adult at 18-- 3 years, 8 months, 20 days ago.
I became financially independent when I graduated from college May 2010.

But am I a woman? Biologically, of course. I am female, my body is physically able to reproduce, but what makes one a woman? Or man, as the case may be... Recently my notes (corrections, things to work on, for my non-dancers) in rehearsal have been that I dance like a girl, and not like a woman. I try. Obviously. I work hard to take the corrections, and move in a way that is mature. But what is it that makes a girl a woman? Is there one specific rite of passage that moves you to womanhood? Or is it a combination of things? Do you wake up one day, and think I'm officially mature.

Good dancing, incorporates good acting. Even if you aren't telling a story, a lackluster performance quality, can make good technique and training, bad dance. Sometimes when I dance I have an alter ego. She's a bolder, fiercer, sexier, sassier, hotter and all around more over the top version of, well, me. Her name is Malia Chantel. Malia came about for dancing that didn't feel comfortable on me. She is the character I go to when I move in a way that's not my personality. I like to be her. But I prefer movement where I can be me. It feels more honest that way. I have my own performance quality, that I hear is just as good if not as "in yo face" as Malia is.

Which leads us back to the point. I'm a young dancer, and a young woman. I clearly lack certain life experiences. We've been over my sheltered youth. I didn't have a hard life; I didn't have to overcome some travesty to pursue my dreams, I was never brutalized or suffered abuse. I had clothes on my back and food in my fridge. I didn't have to grow up quickly to take care of younger siblings. So all those things that make for interesting life experience never happened to me. All of a sudden all of the analogies in rehearsal have turned sex related. "You know when you're doing [that thing] and then..." umm no...sorry, I still have my V-Card.

So which of those character building life experiences makes a girl a woman? I can't say. If I knew I probably wouldn't be writing this, and I wouldn't be getting that note in rehearsal. I'm not a girl. Not yet a woman. I'm still trying to find the woman in me. All I need is time.


the rest is still UNwritten