Fingers hovering over the screen, heart beating a little too fast.
I put the numbers in.
Year of Birth: 2010.
Gender: Female.

The screen flickered, refreshed.
Welcome to Instagram.

Sure, from then on, Instagram knew I was a 15 year old girl. But did it know me? Not really. So it spoke to me in the only way it could. In trends, through women and girls just like me. It sounded something like this:

Girl Math. It’s giving just a girl on a girl summer who’s deer pretty, or maybe frog pretty, or maybe even pig pretty. Wait, am I a winter gamine or a summer dramatic? Cottagecore, strawberry girl, clean girlie, mob wife, tradwife, career driven girlboss, gym girl, pilates princess. Sorry, my hair is lowkey messy, I’m just a girl, I’m just trying to have my girl dinner on my That Girl walk. I’m trying to be an It Girl but it’s just not giving. What’s my makeup blindness? Greek nose or button nose? I’m in my vanilla girl era, or maybe my preppy 12 step skincare routine era…am I male gaze or female gaze. What type of girl am I?

Who even am I?

It sounds ridiculous written out like that, but I can read it fluently. One scroll, I’m convinced I’m now a ‘deep Winter’ and need a new wardrobe. The next, I need to cut my hair short to frame my too-wide face.

But I’ve come to realise that I don’t need to do any of these things. I’m not the one who's lost - it’s these fads, endlessly repackaging girlhood. My girl dinner is whatever my Mum makes and I’ll wear mascara no matter if it’s mob wife or clean girl week. Being a girl is about the things that never stop trending - swapping book recommendations with your friend, sending a “did you get home okay??” message after a party, letting each other know if your eyeliner is smudged or reassuring each other that whatever happens, you’ll be okay. It’s about sharing secrets and laughing at inside jokes in the bathrooms while taking selfies in smudged mirrors. It’s about being a “girl’s girl” when it feels like everyone’s against us. There are so many ways to be a “girl” - and none of them involve girl math, strawberry girls, or out of the blue “eras”.

It’s taken me months, but I think I’ve finally realised what it’s like to be a girl. Deep down, I knew it all along; only because of a few flickering videos on a minuscule screen did I ever change my mind.

The problem was never any of us. We've just got to realise that and take back what it truly means to “be a girl”.