The Hoe Truth and Nothing But the Whole Truth.

Little Holes

I'm on my way
I looked in the mirror again. I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay home. I wanted to be by myself and watch mindless tv or read a distracting book.
The night before I had texted my friend Kate, from up North, explaining how I didn't want to go on this date and how I just wanted to crawl into bed and never leave.
I had texted Kate because we were wired very similarly, we were both introverts, both BBC Sherlock fans, both book worms, both inept with boys, we were the same and we promised to grow old together. She texted me back with wisdom I didn't realize she had though she was the by far the smartest of the two of us.
Here's her words, paraphrased of course:
'Eli, me and you are the same. We live in this little hole, cozy and warm, the perfect size for just ourselves and maybe a bit of company one afternoon. But that hole is black and white. It's nice, but it's devoid of color.
'It scary, and I know you don't want to, but you have to leave the hole sometimes. Leaving though, it opens you to this whole new world bursting with color and all the other people. And once you step out, you bring footprints back into you hole that have color on them, and it will begin to brighten your hole, and the light will make you realize the hole is actually much bigger than you thought.
'Stepping out for the first time is hard, but you have to do it and I promise it will eventually get easier and the space between your hole and the world will be the brightest thing with your colorful footprints marking your well traveled path.
You can do it, I believe in you.'
Her words gave me strength and I recalled them as I stared into the mirror.
"I can do this."
Here, btw you'll have to pay for your own ticket bc I'm broke lol
I can handle that, I mean it is the twenty first century and my young feminist mind wasn't full grown yet. I didn't really know the difference between chivalry and sexism. And so I thought it'd be sexist anyways if he paid and I found myself fully behind the notion.
And it's not sexist, and I wouldn't have a problem with it today, but I might have reread the text and I might have raised the flags at how he talked.
But like I said, I was that first stage of feminist and I didn't understand and I just thought I was being a strong woman. I thought I was informed. I thought I was an adult.
Spoiler: I wasn't.