Grown Out of My Little Girl Voice

For years, we are talking into my forties, solicitors would ask "Is your mother there?" when I answered the phone. I took great delight in telling them that no, she was not and promptly hung up the phone. I just had one of those voices that sounded younger than my age....especially over the phone.

I have realized that number one: I don't get that response much these days and, number two: I want to be recognized as being a woman who has come to be her own person in spirit and resolve as well.

I am not a child anymore but find that for the generation above me, that concept doesn't hold much merit. I am still considered by many to be a "girl" who, though valued for her loyalty and faith and work ethic, still is sort of swept aside when it comes to being accepted as an adult.

I know I have shocked some of those same folks when I state my opinion. You can see it their slightly confused expression. It's as if there is one of those digital moving message signs plastered on their foreheads and their unspoken thoughts read like this: "whatever happened to the little gal we knew * this can't possibly be her* who did this to her * where did she get these ideas * who gave her permission to talk like this to us * we don't accept she has changed * this is not how she was raised ".

You get the picture. And I'm sure you have experienced something very similar once or twice or three times in your life. The frustration grows from your desperate need to be taken seriously. To be accepted for being an individual with your very own brain and your very own life path that although it can run parallel with some, weave in and out of others or cross a course of another's only once has it's own vitality and spunk and sweetness and laughter and perspective on life.

OK, so that was a very long run-on sentence that my eighth grade English teacher Mrs. Irma Leatherberry would have greatly frowned upon. I purposefully chose that form of construction to encompass an enormous amount of passionate personal emotion crunched in between the beginning capital letter to the concluding choice of punctuation.

As you have probably gathered I have experienced these bumps a few times lately so I am sporting sort of a seeping, open tender wound where this subject is concerned. It has been another life lesson that will be posted on my "Never Do This To Your Own Child List" that I brush off and update from time to time.

I leave you with this challenge: accept and receive those folks who cross your path with a respectful and open mind today....you just may be startled by what you let yourself discover.