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I Dishonor ‘The Checklist’ with One I Wrote Myself
I grew up in a large family and on the bottom end of the totem pole. I was the fourth of five children, with three older sisters and a younger brother. Looking back, I expected certain things from my sisters: to take care of me, to watch out for me, to teach me how to do my hair, and of course explain to me what the heck a period was and how to survive it. Normal stuff. But today I am thirty-four and despite my age and accomplishments, nothing will ever advance me further in their eyes than being their little sister.
That’s normal stuff, family dynamics. But I have realized recently that it goes beyond my sisters, I’ve noticed that it’s a feeling that a large portion of society has about me. I am not the youngest person in the room but I am often treated as though I am.
Because people see me as directionless, they see me as childish.
I used to have a pharmacist who commented, every single time I got my birth control and had to recite my date of birth, “Damn you’re thirty? I would never have guessed that, you don’t look that old.” Every. Single. Time.
I stopped going to that pharmacy because of it. I do believe he was trying to be nice and he may have just been so young that the idea of a thirty year old wearing torn jeans and a 2pac shirt was mind-boggling to him. I know that when…
