Me

Okay. I just have to explain something. It’s about my name on this site—Bitter Candle Girl.
Now, the bitter part should be fairly obvious. There’s a definite thread of acid running through most of what I write (and most of what I say in real life, so if we ever meet up, be prepared). And the candle part, although slightly less obvious, is still pretty reasonable—I’m letting my light shine, yadda yadda yadda. So I’m bitter, but I’ve got my candle out, burning away. Woot.
It’s the girl part that I wonder about. I am, I suppose, a little old to be referring to myself as a girl. I feel a need to justify this appellation.
First of all, ‘woman’ is such an earthy, sexy word. When I say the word ‘woman,’ I get a mental image of Betty Page, Marilyn Monroe, Beyonce Knowles: beautiful, curvaceous, confident-seeming women, who are just generally good enough to eat. I’m not saying that to be a woman, you have to be beautiful or sexy, but that’s part of my personal connation of the term. Or, on the other hand, you can be a woman by being strong, intelligent, and dynamic. Eleanor Roosevelt, Harper Lee, Maya Angelou, those are all women, and they’ve earned the title far more completely than I ever have.
Me, though. There’s a line from a Counting Crows song that describes me pretty well; “she had something breakable just under her skin…”. That does a good job of summing me up. There’s something a little bit fragile, a little bit sharp about me, and mind you don’t cut yourself on the edges of who I am. Whereas if I were a woman, a real, confident, sexy, powerful woman, I would be secure enough in myself to be a combination of velvety softness and soothing, warming heat (like the kind of heat you get from drinking whiskey. The kind that gives you a little, not unpleasant, kick in the gut).
Again. That’s not me. So until it is, I’ll have to forego calling myself a woman, and stick with girl. But please don’t read this expecting me to be some perky nineteen-year-old, because I’m not. I’m exactly what the sign says.
Bitter. Burning. And a little bit juvenile.