LANGUAGE WARNING (sometimes I swear)

My friends and family have been waiting for the post-cruise post. Well guys, I’m sorry. This isn’t that post. Your wait just got a little longer. In my defense, I’m still flipping through photos, and going over my story-telling options. I mean, do I share the “Overheard” list, review all the things I kept carrying around in my mouth, or do I go straight for “that time I had to speak to the cruise ship police” story? Tough choices indeed.  You see my dilemma.

So, this is clearly a segue to talk about unicorns.

Oh, it wasn’t? Weird.

Let’s start with… There are certain words that just stick in my craw. There’s no real rhyme or reason to it. I hear the word or phrase, and suddenly I find I’m a little twitchy and that my eyes want to carefully investigate the inside of my cranium. Words like “hipster” or “YOLO”. Then there are the words that have been appropriated. The ones I’ve been warned not to use like “taint”. GRAB A DICTIONARY (“Urban” doesn’t count), you degenerate yahoos!  That’s NOT what that word means.

Ok, now can we talk unicorns?

The first time I heard the word in reference to a person was honestly in the TV show Supernatural – Meg’s special name for Castiel. I actually can’t hear the word without imagining it purred out in that character’s voice. It fit, too. Castiel was pure, chaste, special – a one-of-a-kind.

I’d forgotten about it until not long ago when my male friends were snickering over a video which depicted an eye-rolling graph about women. The X-axis represented degrees of “sanity,” while the Y-axis was “beauty.” Basically, after spewing a lot of words that made me want to punch the aforementioned giggling male friends, it claimed a gorgeous  sane woman was a “unicorn” – a woman who didn’t exist, and if she did, she would be so rare that she’d be impossible to catch.

Then yesterday I found myself on Urban Dictionary looking up “unicorn” and reading the following definition: “That girl that you can’t catch. Everything about her is so perfect (divine, if you will) getting with her is unfathomable…” I snorted.  Honestly dude, you’re not a fair maiden from the middle ages who has been woven into a tatty tapestry, and this “divine” object of your desire is not a cloven hoofed mythical creature with a calcified growth protruding from the middle of her head easily lured by virgins. She’s just a woman.

There is so much to be said here, but I’m going to walk away from this before I hop down a rabbit hole and land on a soapbox.

A friend of mine lamented that men are always out chasing these unicorns, never stopping to look around and take notice of the great “non-unicorn” gals around them. I see her point, but the topic was frustrating. My friend felt so much less than these supposed “unicorns” – these supposed mythical, uncatchable, and overly talented beauties who are somehow “more than” in ways my friend never felt she was or could be.  It was frustrating, because sometimes I feel that despite our best efforts, despite our progress, despite our age or seeming self-confidence that sometimes our only validation can come through the attention of men. (Note: I said “sometimes” there, because we occasionally rally in beautiful ways.) We desire to be a unicorn. We don’t want to believe or be told that, “You are not special. You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else.” (Chuck Palahniuk).  And then we hear men describe a woman as a unicorn, and we yearn for that same attention and want someone to think we’re just as special, just as unique, just as beautiful.

On one hand I want to point out to her how she is this rarefied unicorn – to say something so profound that it allows her to actually see herself through my eyes. On the other, I recognize I don’t see myself through my friends and family’s eyes either, which  frustrates them to no end. I also realize it’s hard for me to talk when I’m wrapped around the axle over a guy who has his prom pictures prominently displayed in his living room. Someone who, as a friend pointed out, I think isn’t as smart as most lamp posts. (In all fairness though, the lamp posts around here are pretty sharp.)

And I recognize in myself that while I’ve been extremely lucky to have caught the eye of some truly great men in the past, I too still want to be thought of as special. I too am frustrated by dating (and coffee – have I mentioned the coffee thing?). And I don’t want to say words that don’t ring true like the ones I always hear: “You don’t need a man in your life; you’re strong,” or “the right one is out there, you’ll find him.” Typing those made me vomit a little.

So, here’s what I want to say to her and to all of my friends, even though they won’t hear it or believe it (because I wouldn’t either):

You’re all unicorns. Maybe not in that ridiculous way Urban Dictionary defines it. You’re  not perfect (who is?), and maybe you’re not “divine” (such a ridiculous adjective),  but  you are beautiful, special, and unique snowflakes. You are untamable, unstoppable, and made the more beautiful by your scars and your flaws – you’re women, not objects. Set the world on fire! Show it how great you are, and screw anyone who doesn’t take a moment to pause and really see you.

And hell, I didn’t play in a mariachi, take tap for seven years, sing onstage with a puppet on my arm, hug it out with Chuck Norris, get trapped in an elevator with Lady Bird, play in orchestras for years, lay someone on their back in Tae Kwon Do, blow out my knee one year only to climb a Mayan ruin the next (almost on the anniversary) to be told I’m not interesting, unique, or a f*in’ badass unicorn.

And you ladies have done even more than that.

You’re all mother fucking unicorns!

But know I do hear you. And I say all of that knowing what you’re feeling and experiencing is frustrating, and understanding how deeply it hurts, but I do truly believe these unicorn hunters aren’t worthy of you – they never were. Show them how great you are.

(PS – Jenn, I think I’m still mad. 😦 )