Hey!!! I remember you little chocolate girl with the long fingers, spindly legs and knobby knees. It seems like your appendages were outgrowing the rest of you by leaps and bounds!

You begged your mother for piano lessons although she tried, unsuccessfully, to get you to take dance lessons. You were too shy for that though. A shy bookworm who didn’t need to be entertained and loved being alone.

So naive. You thought the neighborhood boy, Bryon W., asked you to be his girlfriend when what he really asked for was some “booty“. Remember how insulted you felt? You went home and told your mom with that “how dare he” indignation in your voice. You were only 8 years old and he was too mannish for his own good!

You were a perfect mix of girly girl and tomboy. Sunday mornings would find you decked out in your frilly dress, ankle socks with the lace trimming, and patent leather Mary Janes headed to church with “Mudda”. But later that day you were playing touch football in the middle of the street with Edwin, Edward, Kevin, and Emmanuel.

You could run, throw, and catch the ball with the best of them…up until that very last pass. It came spiraling through the air and positioning yourself perfectly, you caught the ball…your newly developing boobies absorbing the impact. O.U.C.H!!!! Dropping the ball, you declared, “I QUIT!” and ran home leaving the boys standing there in the middle of the street dumbfounded. However, there were still lizards to dissect, tadpoles to catch, and trying, unsuccessfully, to coach a turtle out of it’s shell. Little league softball at the neighborhood park was short lived though…you couldn’t bat the ball worth a dime!

To call you a Daddy’s girl was an understatement. You would take off running for home after hearing his signature whistle signaling it was time to come inside from playing, as if the street lights weren’t warning enough.

Let me tell you a few things sugah…don’t ever lose your passion for reading and when you discover writing – keep doing that too. That attraction you have for the odd ball eccentric loner kids in class…keep that too because you will find that they are the most interesting people. Oh yeah, and that affinity you have to empathize and relate to those emotionally fragile souls…you’ll keep that too.

Eventually you will grow to hate your holiday birthday but enjoy it now with your friends eating cake and ice cream because soon they will prefer the company of boys/men on Valentine’s Day. But don worry, you will experience some awesome friendships along the way with some equally awesome girls/women.

That feeling of “not quite belonging” and that persistent pull that “there’s something else out there” will prompt you to move out of state, traveling to different destinations culminating with a burning desire to live abroad.

And guess what? You will do that too!!

We will do it! I’ll take you with me.

You’re always with me…that little chocl8t girl with the long fingers, spindly legs and knobby knees.