Some girls arrive at themselves slowly.
Not with revelation,
not with certainty,
but with quiet interruptions—
a lingering stare across a classroom,
the impossible softness of another girl’s smile,
the sudden awareness
that admiration has crossed some invisible border
into longing.
And no one teaches them
what to do with that.
So they sit alone with questions
too delicate to speak aloud.
Is this normal?
Do other girls think like this too?
Why does my chest tighten
when she touches my hand?
Why do I keep imagining things
I was never supposed to imagine?
They call them “girl crushes”
because the phrase sounds harmless,
small enough to survive in daylight.
A joke.
A phase.
Something temporary.
But some crushes linger like weather.
Some become dreams
that leave a girl staring at her ceiling at two in the morning,
terrified not of the fantasy itself,
but of what it might mean.
Because possibility is frightening.
What if she tries something
and feels nothing at all?
What if she tries something
and feels everything?
What if the kiss is awkward?
What if it isn’t?
What if her entire understanding of herself
shifts beneath her feet
because another girl looked at her
for half a second too long?
And who can she tell?
A friend?
A sister?
Her mother?
But even mothers grew up
inside quieter decades.
Years where women learned quickly
which thoughts were acceptable
and which must be buried alive.
Back then,
desire between women existed mostly in implication—
in careful glances,
in coded friendships,
in letters burned before anyone else could read them.
There were fewer words.
Fewer stories.
Fewer people brave enough to say:
“I have felt this too.”
So confusion became inheritance.
Silence passed from mother to daughter
like an heirloom nobody wanted to name.
And though the world has softened somewhat,
though there are now flags and language
and communities that once seemed impossible,
many girls still carry that ancient fear:
that honesty might cost them love,
family,
safety,
or even themselves.
So they negotiate privately
with their own reflection.
Maybe I’m making this up.
Maybe everyone thinks this way.
Maybe I only want attention.
Maybe I am queer.
The word itself can feel enormous
the first time it enters the mind honestly.
Not because it is ugly,
but because it rearranges the room.
And acceptance—
true acceptance—
rarely arrives all at once.
Sometimes it comes timidly,
through conversation.
Through trust.
Through finding one person
who listens without flinching.
Sometimes it arrives years later,
after exhausting every argument
against one’s own heart.
And sometimes,
the bravest thing a girl can do
is simply allow herself
to wonder.
To not punish herself
for curiosity.
To understand that confusion
is not corruption,
that longing is not failure,
that questioning oneself
is not something shameful,
but deeply human.
Because identity is rarely born cleanly.
It unfolds.
Quietly.
Painfully.
Beautifully.
Like a truth
waiting patiently
for someone to stop being afraid
of hearing it.
© Susie Stiles-Wolf