Just Me

Whenever I open a book written for girls, or a women's book which talks about what you were like when you were little, I always feel slightly like a second-class girl.

The presumption is made, by just about all books and repeated in just about all conversations, that all girls want to be a princess, can't wait to wear make-up for the first time, giggle over boys, think of nothing but fashion and shoes, will read and watch only those stories that are romantic and end happily-ever-after and above all - think that all things pink and fluffy are the best.

As a girl who loved nothing better then running around outside in a pair of jeans getting hot and dirty, preferred boys' adventure to girls' romantic, hated those fussy fluffy things, would rather have been an astronaut then a princess and would get fussed to pieces if she had to wear make-up, I find that according to most people, I am not really a girl.

So as I am a girl, but don't fit into most people's idea of what a girl should be, what exactly am I? Should I let my identity be shaped or threatened by people's expectations? Do I have to fit into someone else's box to be who I am?

I believe that I am unique. I believe that I am someone who nobody else has ever been or ever will be. No one else has ever had my combination of likes and dislikes, of strong-points and weak-points, of characteristics, of features and behaviour. How can the writer of a book tell me that I either am or am not truly a girl?

The only thing that we can truly be is ourselves. No one else has ever, or will ever, have the opportunity to be us! God made us as we are because that is how He wants us to be! It is not a list in a book that should be defining us - it is God. It is not other people's expectations that should be telling us who we are - God has made us who we are. It is not other people's character traits that should be prescribing what our own should be - it is God.

When God created us He gave us one of the best gifts in this world - He gave us ourselves. Ourselves is exactly what we should be - no one more, no one less.