Little things

Sometimes very small things make me happy, like my earrings. They are small in size, they barely make a sound, and I only feel them for a moment when I put them on. Afterwards I’m not aware of them anymore. They are just details that complete the picture.

And then suddenly, at a moment when I don’t expect it, they catch my attention. When driving in the car over a speed bump, they move. I feel the movement, they gently pull at my earlobe. And they make a tinkling sound. Very soft, but audible. They tell me: “We are here”. They send me a reminder: “Today you are a woman”. It’s a pleasant reminder. The smile comes naturally.

I want to shake my head. A trick I learned from a curly girl. “You have to shake your head every now and then. That’s better than going through your curls with your hands.” But head banging with my earrings on is a risk. They’re clip-ons, so I’d better take them off. And then, when my hair is okay, I can put them back on again.

And then one falls out when I put on my mouth mask. So silly. I forgot to go around the earring with the string as well. And again they seem to say: “You have chosen us, so now you have to take us into account as well”. Oh, I’m happy to do that.

Exploring female expression. It’s one of the nicest things I’ve done in my life so far. It’s a path full of surprises, little surprises, funny surprises. The sound of my new name when someone pronounces it. My hands not knowing where to go, because my dress has no pockets. The glass that gets knocked over, because my wide skirt hit it when I passed. A print of my lip gloss in the mouth mask. Small reminders of my new status. They tell me: “You still have a lot to learn”.