"Stories That Happen to Other People. That’s What Girls Are Supposed to Be."

Sometimes, it feels like I could just keep crying forever. That's how I feel now, after reading an article in the New Statesman about the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype and her prevalence in both the media and, to some extent, the real world.

Because reading this article--realizing that your own very life choices are defined by trying to become an archetype that you didn't even know existed is terrifying. 

The real danger is that the MPDG seems, on the surface, to the untrained eye, to be feminist in her very character. The idea that she is very much herself, speaks her mind, and has quirks and flaws make her a non-conformist and thus in theory a feminist-leaning character. But she's not, and I'm not going to explain it because honestly I can't really be any more eloquent than Laurie Penny is in her description.

I see the MPDG very much in myself. The part that gets me, though, is that this is deliberate on my part. After an awkward, solitary, and tomboyish childhood, my fifteenth year brought drastic change to my personality and an attempt to distance myself from who I had been in middle school. I began to wear skirts and paint my nails, exchanged almost my entire wardrobe for a new collection in frilly pastel fabrics. I've always been quirky, but characters like Amy Pond and every character Zooey Deschanel has ever played suddenly held a new attraction for me. I emulated them as much as I could manage. It wasn't hard, of course: like the author of the piece, "I remain a small, friendly, excitable person who wears witchy colors and has a tendency towards the twee." In many ways, this is who I am and I have no desire to change that.

But I know that I am going through another change, and sitting here reading the article I could feel more of my fascination with this archetype draining away. Because it is true: I am not MPDG. I am myself--I have real flaws that are not just adorable quirks. I have real thoughts and feelings. I am an adult woman in a lot of ways.

Of course, I am also still a child. And I don't have to grow up yet--I know that. But I am in an awkward in-between place. A place where frilly skirts and silly quirks are still very much how I define myself, but a place where suddenly twee is a word I disassociate with. I know that the time is coming when I will have to be an adult, be my own story. And I am motivated by the fear that remaining stationary will cause my story to end up being about someone else. 

I have decisions to make.