When Did We Become ‘Women’ Anyway?

Was there an initiation I missed? A meeting I didn’t attend? When did girlhood turn into womanhood? What did the turning point look like? Was it so traumatic that I suppressed it? Or was it so sly that I didn’t even notice.

Womanhood isn’t a destination. And certainly not a bold entrance.

The transition from girlhood isn’t an age, or a moment, but a bridge built by bricks of heartbreak, responsibilities, survival, and the weight of emotional ups and downs.

When our identities changed, societal expectations and perception changed too. It was slow, quiet. Unexpected. Many of us, unprepared, were suddenly viewed differently, spoken to with a different language. We were suddenly expected to just know better. The rooms that were once held for softness began shrinking around us. There was a silent compassion the world had for us as girls, that turned into criticism as women. Sometimes there’s a quiet grief that comes with revelation. We learn, we grow, we make our mistakes until they compound past an invisible threshold that alters what we know as innocence. Then innocence turns into expectation.

But recently, I discovered something.

There is a piece of girlhood that we carry with us forever.

An intrinsic light.

A joy every woman still possesses, dare she let it shine. That light is a seed buried deep inside of us that we must not forget. The tainted soil must be uncovered. Old scars must be revisited, even splinters have to be dug out to prevent scar tissue from forming, or possible infection from setting in. Wisdom and maturity aren’t happenstance. They are the things we can be proud of.

Perhaps healing the little girl within us is how we finally understand when we became women.