“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

My elementary teacher had asked me this question as I was gluing cheap rhinestones on a pink paper purse. I’d answered with something like ‘a mom’ because it was all I knew how to be, for infant dolls filled my little bedroom and a Barbie dollhouse was waiting for me at home. I was used to dressing up my plastic children with accessories of all kinds, and figured that was what I wanted to do. Except instead of dolls that I bent and contorted to slip on a mini dress and pink high heels, they’d be real children that I’d dedicate my entire life to. 

I knew that as a girl, I had countless options for what I could grow up to be. A wife, a mother, a teacher, a nurse, a model… A career in which I didn’t have to worry about making important decisions for myself, since I didn’t know how to. I was just a girl, after all.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” My middle school teacher asked me, around the time that I was preparing to graduate eighth grade.

“I don’t know,” I replied quickly, sinking into my creaky chair. But I then remembered my family’s long line of nurses. My mom, aunts, and even grandmothers had all been nurses, which made me feel obligated to follow in their footsteps. “I think I’ll be a nurse. A really good nurse.”

But as I began to branch off into high school, I watched the friends that encircled me with grand ambitions and dreams. I knew a girl who wanted to be a mechanical engineer, and another who wanted to become a neurosurgeon. We would talk on and on about these hopes for the near future at our little lunch table. And these were all girls that were just like me—except they didn’t care about what everyone else in the world thought. Months in high school became years, and with each passing day, I could feel myself becoming just like them. Some person with flaming ambitions, even if I was just a girl at the end of the day.

I could feel the passion bubble within me the second I picked up a scalpel for the first time and made an incision during a dissection. It was truly amazing, liberating even, because I could finally see what the world had to offer to me. I stacked classes upon classes that taught me about the human body. Its intricate network of muscle and bone never failed to take my breath away. Anatomy was fascinating to me in a way that words could never describe. It revealed to me that beneath our surface, we were all the same. 

For the first time in my life, it felt like I served a unique purpose—one that I’d never imagined before.

I still remember one particular day—a crisp, autumn afternoon while sitting outside during lunch break. My friends and I were talking about how amazing it would’ve been if one of us found the cure for cancer one day—a great leap for mankind. I took a bite of the same sandwich that my mom packed for me everyday. Everything felt perfectly normal, until a hint of cologne brushed past my rose-tinted nose. 

“The cure for cancer?” One of the guys in my grade scoffed as he approached our lunch table. “But you’re all just a bunch of girls!” 

I had only given a soft chuckle in response and took another bite of my boring sandwich. It was just a joke. He didn’t mean any harm. 

No one meant any harm. Right?

“Girls are so hysterical!”

“You look really tired.”

“Calm down and quit acting like such a girl.”

“Are you on your period or something?”

“It’s okay to be upset. Girls are supposed to be emotional.”

“You should try smiling some more, princess.”

These light-hearted jokes slowly became constant knives that the world drove into my back as I grew older with time. Everywhere I went, it felt like a shadow looming above my head. The pearl necklace on my neck that I once loved now felt too tight, and the lip gloss I wore began to feel like duct tape. Doors that should’ve been kept open were shutting in my face, and I was left in a desolate room with no way out. 

All except for one, at least.

I walked into my high school’s college counseling office, into the well-lit atmosphere that smelled of paper and bright futures. The shelves were lined with hundreds of college brochures and in the center of the room was a desk cluttered with stacks of paperwork. In the squeaky office chair sat the man himself, with his sunken eyes looming over a recommendation letter in his hands. Upon my entrance, Mr. Anderson flitted his eyes upwards and motioned for me to have a seat in front of him.

“Ah, Melanie!” He exclaimed as I quietly sat down, “So, have you thought about what career you’d like to pursue?”

“I want to become a doctor,” I told him simply, “because I dare to dream and carve my own path in a world where barriers are meant to be broken. Being a doctor isn’t just a career to me—it’s a revolution. A revolution against societal expectations in which one’s gender defines their abilities to make a difference in our world. I will become a living symbol of the boundless potential that lies within every woman. Gender isn’t the architect of my future—I am.”

Except I didn’t say any of that, of course.

“A doctor? That’s a big ambition, Melanie. Are you sure you don’t mean a nurse?” 

My lips were parched from being sealed for so long. “Yeah,” I replied timidly, “Something like that.”