“BRITTANY”

This piece is based upon a Caucasian girl, age 17

Her main quote: I think I’m as real as I can be without completely knowing myself yet.

Some of her other quotes:

• I think that the best thing about being a teenage girl is that you can just be a teenage girl....you still have the license to be just be a kid and have fun.

• The drama’s probably like the worst thing about being a teenage girl, where you know, everything is huge.. and there’s so many tears shed that don’t need to be and...you waste so much emotional energy...

• For a while, you go through that time, and I think that that’s a really big thing with, like, trends and the popular things are, like—it’s not real, you know, that you can be this part of this crowd and it’s not necessarily going to be a real friendship.

• I think I have those fleeting thoughts where I’m like, “Oh I wish I had a smaller...or I wish was bigger or I wish I...you know.”  I have seen a lot of friends go through eating disorders...and that’s so hard for me, especially when you know someone’s such a beautiful person and to watch them and there’s nothing you can do...

• I try to take on everything and...I give my whole self to everything, you know, like, there is so much at risk...but there are moments when I’m like, “I wish that I had.someone in my life that I can lean on.”  And I fight with that.  Because we have grown up in a time when it’s been like, “You’re your own woman, you don’t need anyone else to get by.” 

• I hate to feel like I have to be protected...more often it’s girls who have to be afraid of walking alone at night on the street. 

• And it wasn’t so much that I wanted to be a sex object as I wanted to be, like, wanted.  But I have this whole new concept of what’s sexy.  Now when I feel sexy, it’s because I feel, “Wow, I look good.  I feel good.” ...and it’s not because I’ve put on clothes that everyone else thinks is sexy, it’s because I’ve put on clothes that make me feel just amazing... and I don’t even think that it’s so much worrying about if other people think I’m sexy, like, I don’t need them to tell me, “You look really good.”  I think that I walk out of the house already with that feeling. 

• I think the world knows a lot of who I am...though a lot of me is mystery still.  And I think that I’ve learned to put myself out there more.  There are certain people that I think I close myself off to, and I think a lot of that is to protect myself.  I think that I’m real for the most part...even when it gets kind of weary to be real.

• I don’t want to put a fake personality on everyday.  That would be so exhausting. 

• I have things to say and, like, people don’t recognize it...and maybe a lot of it, maybe part of it is because I’m a girl and they don’t think that I should have a mind of my own.  Or maybe part of it is that they think I’m a teenager and I don’t care, like, you know, it’s all about clothes and cars and things.  But, like, they don’t understand that we’re not all alike...and that a lot of the things that are issues in the world today are things that concern us and that we definitely have a voice about...if people would let us be heard.