Just Girls

          As I sifted through old photos and ancestry records long since forgotten, I learned this gut-wrenching truth. I never knew much of my grandmother’s past. She was a woman of few words; the ones she shared were always brief and blunt, but still kind. She was the silent generation’s living example of “if you have nothing nice to say…” and I knew just enough about her childhood to know…she would say nothing at all.

          But after she passed away, I began obsessing over all the things I never asked or implored her to expound on. The riddle of our lineage plagued me. In the mornings, I was calling town halls over coffee and searching public records. At night when the world was sleeping, I was in the attic of my childhood home dragging countless boxes beneath a dimly lit Edison bulb to investigate the contents inside. Unlatching the leather buckle clasps of the last steamer trunk, the smell of history rose into the air around me. Old pine, parchment, and sage. Going through decades of births, deaths, marriages and divorces…there it was. In hideous black and white archival transcriptions.

          Three generations born within thirty years.

          My grandmother was born to a fifteen year old mother, whose own mother was made a grandmother at thirty. Their birth years repeated in my mind; like a combination to the vault safeguarding generational damage. 1902, 1917, 1932.

          And all of the fathers were adult men.

          Seated on my heels, I slowly slouched to the side in shock; letting my hip land on the plywood board covering the itchy pink insulation wedged between planks. Emotions stormed through me too quickly to gauge their depths. At the center of this squalling internal mess, was a quiet and solemn acknowledgement. An empathetic understanding for two fifteen year old’s I had never met…though they were somehow a part of me.

          The most that men have ever openly hit on, and made attempts towards me in my lifetime was when I was clearly and admittedly underage. Through my bewilderment of discovery, was an acknowledgement that one hundred years separated us. Back then, a man with a young teenager was a societal norm no one would tilt their head at. But my mind couldn’t stop itself from turning my justification onto its side. 

          And one hundred years later…nothing has changed. 

          I thought back to uncomfortable whistles, gestures, and “compliments” which made me cringe. Raising neck hairs, and sending shivers down my spine coming from men my fathers age. I thought of times I questioned what I wore, how I walked, or what impression I gave that would invite unwanted advances. I thought of the man who was brazen enough to not just leave it at winks and untoward words my Freshman year. Shifting through decades of history repeating itself, I realized I’m not a rare or unique case. I’m not alone in this lived experience. 

          And, no. We weren’t “mature for our age”.  We weren’t “fast”, or “grown”.

          We were just girls.