“I hate you!” I screamed with all of my nine year old might. The yelling making my throat scratchy and raw. The yelling making my mom put down her book and yell back at me. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything. Everything was changing suddenly, and it was all too much too soon. So I ran down the hall, my flip-flops smacking the hard tile. Angry tears falling from my unseeing eyes.

I kept running until I crawled through the viney jungles of my teenage years, thorns of misunderstanding everything and understanding too much cutting up my hands, my feet. Adolescence in all its tangled fury. First sprained ankle, first fight with a best friend, first bra, first kiss. I kept running till I broke through. Scars still on the inside, but I’m here, on the other side. Finally.

Now the song is handed to me again. Here, on the flip side of childhood. Not woman, not girl, but somewhere in between. A hybrid of Max Factor mascara and Hello Kitty stickers. The song is handed to me wrapped in red paper, a gift.