Flawfull

Until Your Wedding, It Will All Be Gone

The first time I learned to sew was in fourth grade. Or was it fifth? Anyway, the only thing I still remember about it is my mother's harsh sewing rules.

Rule number one: Do not get stabbed!

Which of course I could not obey since I unwillingly got stabbed more than I could ever count. One might say I was quite bad at sewing, I can certainly say I hated it. It was my mother's rule number two which forced me to continue anyway: Every young lady should know how to sew.

And so I learned. I had to since I was the only lady at the house except for my mom herself. The twins never needed to learn anything at all. They were The Twins. People loved them without even knowing them. And more than that, they were boys. Meaning, rule number two did not apply to them.

Boys... the male version of girls. It was only later on in my life- in seventh grade, or was it sixth?- when I started noticing these stinky, arrogant and extremely dumb creatures. The twins were boys and everything that came along with it. They were boys, privileged to sit with open legs, to spit, to walk around shirtless in a hot day, to pull at girls' braids and to not learn to sew. Not to learn to cook, Not to learn to clean, Not to learn to wash laundry or hang it or fold it.

For that there were girls. We were girls, kind and pretty and gentle who knew absolutely everything about housework. But more importantly, we were nothing of what we showed. We were girls, hiding in empty classes and pretending to be boys, trying to mimic their deep voices and their funny manly walk. Only then we could allow ourselves to try out some curses out loud when the clean board and empty chairs served as our silent audience. We were girls, comparing our breast size and discovering who got her period already was our entire world. We were girls, innocents and completely unaware.

"Ouch," I cried, as the needle found its way once again to my finger skin instead of the shirt fabric. I recognized the first redbud of blood and could not help myself from crying.

"Shhh..." my mom hushed me while taking my injured finger between her good hands. She wiped my blood on her skirt then kissed the tip of my finger gently. "Oh, my poor child, does it hurt a lot?" she asked. I nodded, tears rushing down my cheeks.

That was when I learned rule number three- when she pushed my curls behind my ear carefully and whispered warmly: "Until your wedding, it will all be gone."

She used to say it every time I got hurt ever since. When I fell down when I lost in a fight with the twins when I knocked my head on the fridge door accidentally. But when I came up to her years later and cried out that a guy broke my heart I refused to accept her usual comfort. "You don't understand!" I got mad, "he was the one I was supposed to marry with!"

Then my mom burst out of laughing but never mentioned rule number three again.

I always thought I was bad at being a girl, a bit like a fish out of water. It wasn't anything specific which helped me get to that realization, it was more of a general life experience with myself. Just by looking at other girls; the way they spoke quietly or crossed their legs and ate elegantly or sewed,

I could tell I did not look the same when I did the exact same things. I was clumsy and loud(a side-effect of living with the twins for too long) and bad at sewing.

It was only after I met Jasmine when I understood for the first time in my life that girlhood was a pattern which I could choose whatever I want to mold into it.