As I sit here on a wooden bench hidden in the women's locker room, my mind is relentlessly distracted by those words. I repeatedly checked the time and counted every minute until my shift starts. Yet, the words in my head play over and over.

"Well-behaved women seldom make history."

Who said this? Eleanor Roosevelt? Margaret Thatcher? Apparently, this nationally recognized and regularly used phrase was written by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Yeah, who? The Pulitzer Prize-winning author wrote a book titled after this feminist phrase, but her intended meaning is often overlooked. To me, I thought the phrase was a call to action. All badass women assemble to tackle the inequalities of the world!

But--

Little did I know, the statement is more of a question. Why are peaceful, honorable women rarely in our history books, while there are plenty of men? For Ulrich, she didn't intend for renegade women to plaster her statement on cotton t-shirts; to her, it was a request for peaceful and silent equality.

Sitting and rotting in the lifeguard chair, I couldn't help but stare at the water. I'm even more confused with the sentence than before. The water beneath me was clear, and yet my mind was a murky haze of confusion.

Am I a well-behaved woman?

To this, I cannot say. If I could be completely honest with you, I wish I were a well-behaved woman. I find myself in a state where there is plenty of evidence to me. The consensus is clear that, rather than a pleasant girl, I am a:

Bitch.

A bitch in a lifeguard chair is what I am right now: clocked in, red shirt, with a fanny pack strapped on and no care in the world. Maybe with too much care. I was under the illusion that I could write poetry, and my words could hold enough substance to move, not mountains, but maybe a small hill, like a putting green.

In turn, I single-handedly wrecked my relationships with all of my favorite people with a couple words. I thought I held a mirror to people with what I had to say, but in reality, it was a skewed funhouse mirror that left the truth distorted.

Or was it?

This brings me to my confusion, while I sit at a pool watching the lane swimmers complete endless laps in a continuous loop. A loop where I found my mind following a bottomless pit of, "What the fuck, Faith?"

Maybe I should try to behave, or try to be the role model woman with open arms, like Mother Teresa. I should try to be nice, try to be pleasant and try to make everyone in the world happy. Maybe I should try to hold back my tongue, think before I speak, and transform into a gentle and reserved butterfly of a woman released from my cocoon of "childish" behavior. Childish. Behavior.

Who's to say my behavior is childish? Who's to say my experiences aren't the truth? Should I be ashamed of myself because I wrote what I felt, even though it wasn't "nice"? Yes, I unintentionally ruined those relationships because I chose to misbehave. Yet, I don't know if I could sit here and write a "Top 10 Scary Movies to Watch Before Halloween" article.

Why?

Truth through experiences matter, and more times than not, it's hard to find a woman in this world who is...

"well-behaved."