"Equal in weight."
For years I wondered what this meant. Of course I was equal as a man, but why did my name have to bear that?
Apparently I was named after the Great Greek Heroine Atalanta who proved to herself that she was equal to anyone even though she was a woman. In a way her story is similar to mine though I doubt in the way my mom wanted it to.
We were both abandoned by our fathers from the day we were born. Without question we were abandoned by the man who was supposed to be our first love and strangely became adopted by a lonely woman a while later.
The heroine's caretaker was a bear in the wilderness, and mine was an old lady named Esperanza who took care of me when I didn't want to be with my mom. They had both lost kids, so I guess they had more in common than they realized.
Without Esperanza, I would not have survived this long.
I've also had my fair share of males questioning me. Who hasn't?
They want you to be pretty and skinny and they falter when you have a personality.
I detest my name. I will never be as strong as they want me to be. I'll never stand up to them.
I will never prove that I am equal, or even enough.
