The other afternoon I enthusiastically volunteered to chauffer my 13-year-old family friend to Kroger in order to pick out the perfect pumpkin to decorate for the impending Haloween season ahead of us. I listened to her as she went on and on about her plans for said pumpkin, what color she was going to paint her nails, and multiple accounts of which teacher or friend "really pissed her off this week". It was hard not to look at her in the way I did when she was little, and even harder not to be nostalgic for when my problems aligned with hers.
I am always so careful of the way I hold myself in front of her. Everything, from the words I choose, the things I share with her, and most importantly the advice I give to her. I do this because I respect not only her fragility as she is navigating her way through this confusing and at times painful part of her life, but because I admire the strength and potential that I recognize is within her.
It is hard for me to no longer view her as the little girl, but rather a young woman who is finding who she is. Her being is so delicate, that I want to do everything in my power to protect her innocence and shelter her from the harsh reality that can be our world at times.
As she excitedly leaned over on the wood palette to access the bottom of the barrel pumpkins, a strange man pulled up in the unloading zone behind us.
It was concerning enough for a car to block you from the view of the public, or a way to be able to leave. I tried to ignore my baser instincts so that I did not alarm her.
My brain was set into a full-fledged fight or flight mode when the man approached us and asked us what we thought we were doing. I remained silent, pretended like I didn't hear him. Her, being confused responded that we were picking out a pumpkin to carve and paint.
The man then took this as an invitation to come closer and ramble some nonsense about how we were pumpkin heads and rubbed her back. The look I saw on her face was all too familiar. The look of fear mixed with guilt for being unsettled from the touch of a man that by most people's standards was simply being friendly.
I found myself frozen in fear, and only able to lace my fingers around the car keys in the pocket of my sweatpants. I couldn't do anything, but curse myself for being so stupid as to forget my pepper spray at home. I carefully navigated ourselves away from this man after insisting that we did not, in fact, need him to hold us while we leaned over to look in the box.
When I had successfully ushered us away from him and safely inside the store. I stopped to take a good look at her. There was a look in her eyes that had never been there before. A look of downright confusion and fear. She looked as though she was going to burst into tears as she said that "she didn't understand because she was only wearing an oversized shirt and leggings".
She said, "I didn't give him any reason to think that I would want him to touch me, and he did, I feel so gross." All I could do was hug her and hold her face in my hands as I explained that there was in fact, no reason for that to happen and that it was in fact not her fault. That things like this happened every day to women all over the world that don't ask for it in the slightest. Women in power, teachers, moms, Aunts, Cousins, and sisters.
She then looked down bewildered and asked me why I was holding my keys in such a weird way. She started to giggle like when she was a little girl because she thought that I was just being silly. I was so tempted to preserve that innocence, by letting her believe that It was just a goofy mishap on my part. I wanted so badly to let her innocent laughter wash over me.
But I valued her safety far above her childlike innocence.
So I then solemnly explained that it was no mistake and that the keys were meant to be used as a temporary means of a last ditch effort to defend myself. I watched this fall on her like a heavyweight. I watched the realization wash over her that this was not the first time something like this would happen to me.
That this would unfortunately no be the only time something like this would happen to her.
Sometimes you work so hard to ensure that you are giving your younger loved ones the right image of you.
In the way, you carry yourself, the stories you share with them, and even in the words that you allow them to hear.
That you forget you are not in control of the way in which the rest of the world will influence them.
She will not stay little forever, and there are some things that you simply cannot hide her away from no matter how ugly they are or how hard you may try.
