Well, it’s here. Soon to be reflected in flame-kissed leaves and the litter from litres of seasonal lattes—it’s suddenly September. With September comes a kind of clarity August can only dream of. The city sobers up and buttons down. It’s time to get serious, kids. Pencils up.
Blame it on some kind of Woody Allen-esque obsession with mortality, but walking around campus (this year more so than any other) I couldn’t help but feel horrendously, gigantically old.
I’m not one to get intoxicated off nostalgia (there are quicker methods), but inevitably I’m wandering back almost half a decade to when I first came to Ottawa. All of this internal, poetic waxing has a trigger. It wears ponytails and Lululemon leggings. It’s debating rushing. It’s trying to figure out where its discussion group is, and if a discussion group is worth it. It’s wondering if anyone has ever taken the O-Train before and if so, can they help? It hasn’t found its drink of choice yet.
Freshman girls, I’m looking at you.*
Don’t let the previous paragraph fool you, there is nothing but love here. Just as the brilliant Sarah Nicole Prickett said to me many moons ago in Chelsea when I too was a girl, so I say to you now: “I have all the time in the world for girls like you.”
I don’t mean to sound condescending, lord knows you get talked down to enough. While I am only a handful of years older than you, that fist full of time is swollen with experience. I have only ever gone through this life as a girl, and now as a woman, so it is with this in mind that I dare not give advice to freshmen boys, whose path, while paved with privilege, is infinitely different from ours, and complex nonetheless.
It is with this, with you, with my far away first-year self in mind, that I write this manifesto of advice meant only to aid, guide, and reassure you during this tumultuous time we call Carleton.
To thine own cunt be true. Are you still with me? Good. Living in your own sexual renaissance is key to truly belonging to only yourself. Learn (safely and responsibly) what you like in bed and ask for it, because you are entitled to pleasure.
You’re also entitled to pain. Don’t let anyone make you feel like you don’t have a right to your emotions. “You’re acting crazy” he will say, a mechanism designed to make you question and second guess your (typically) appropriate emotional response to his (usually) terrible behaviour. Give yourself some credit, because no one else will.
Band together. There is nothing more formidable in this world than a group of girls who have each others’ backs.
Trust. The patriarchy (or, if you prefer, ‘the system‘ for those of you not yet politicized) would much rather have you bickering amongst yourselves over bodies, boys, and besties than reversing the critical gaze that is constantly put upon you.
Think. Learn. Question. Go to class. The end of your degree seems like a lifetime away now, but I assure you it is very near. Don’t you want to get out into that great big ‘real world’ we’ve been hearing so much about?
Don’t let whatever size the industry has deemed you get you down. Something to keep in mind—your beautiful body (for I assure you, it is divine), is capable of producing and harbouring life. I swear I’m not reducing you to a biological function. Birth is the last item on a millennia long list of amazing things women can do.
Just remember this the next time some man (or god forbid, boy) calls you fat, or tells you your tits are too small, or points out your lack of a trendy thigh gap. You possess something he never can, and he is a fool for diminishing your body, your self, to an aesthetic object for his consumption.
You are more than that.
You—and your potential—are infinite.
*Sorry for calling you ‘it’ back there. Style, you know?
