When Tomboys Grow Up

(Inspired by being stuck at home all summer and this book.)
I didn't stand a chance really.

I grew up on a small farm in Podunk, Arkansas as the only child of an only child. Until I was ten, the only other child on my road was the boy next door. We were born a month apart.

So, naturally, we played what boys played. I still had Barbies. I played with them by myself, concocting long, drawn out tales about parole officers and running from the law.

I know, I was strange. But my parents encouraged my imagination, and after a few botched attempts at all-girl playdates, let me hang out with the neighbor boy- and all my elementary school guy friends.

Fast forward to high school, where I'm a tuba player- yet again one of the guys in a group of friends. As in, one of the guys had a "no girls allowed" birthday party- except, of course, for me.

I like to think subconsciously that my parents knew about me. I mean, running out at three in the morning to drive around town in a car full of boys? Fine. Spending the night at my one female friend's house watching movies? They threw a fit- which is understandable to them in retrospect, since I spent most of high school following her like a lovesick puppy.

The problem is, I'm not a ten year old brat trading Pokemon cards or fighting with stick swords. And I'm not a teenager staying up late to steal traffic cones or talk about starting a band.

I'm twenty, and I'm having a bit of a crisis. Exactly what do tomboys grow up to be? How do we stay happy and keep those around us happy? Is it even possible?

I don't want to give in and learn how to become a pretty, proper woman. Besides the fact that I hate the idea of buying into gender roles like that, I also have a twenty year learning curve to face.

Plus, I've realized that coming out to my mother was probably one of the worst mistakes of my life. She's always accepted my tomboy nature because, being honest, she's a bit of a tomboy herself. I think she feels that, because I like women, I'm threatening her sexuality or something. As if I'm made in her image.

I get straight A's while doing two majors with course overload every semester. I have three jobs- one during the school year, two in the summer. I'm an officer in a very busy music fraternity. I mow my grandma's lawn, and I buy all my vegetarian food (anything not packaged or meat). I depend on my parents for nothing. No tuition, no allowance, no trips to visit me at school.

I just depend on their approval- specifically, my mother's. And after coming out to her, I feel like nothing I do is good enough. I'm working my ass off to go to a good grad school, and she's just upset that I'm moving even farther away. She complains incessantly about me going to school two hours away, but is encouraging her best friend to send her daughter to school nine hours away- at a school where, unlike me, the daughter is not being paid to attend.

I see my future, what makes me happy, and I'm beginning to realize that, for all their insistence that whatever makes me happy makes them happy, I'm never going to be perfect for them. So now I've come to a crossroads. It's tempting to drop it all, marry some nice boy, take the online graduate program and work at the local library that I've been volunteering/working at for ten years already.

I know this is the life they want for me. I also know I'd probably shoot myself in the head five years down the road. So, I'm considering, after I graduate college (if I last), completely cutting off contact with Arkansas. I know that being at school and away from home has already made me feel much better about myself, and allowed me to explore becoming an adult independent of my parents' beliefs and criticisms.

But walking out on them means walking out on that rare stamp of approval from another human being. Walking out means learning to trust my judgment alone and not caring if I screw up. Walking out means learning to not give a fuck.

And maybe that's what happens when tomboys grow up.