The Twinkies in me.

Side note: You may replace the Twinkies with any sugary treat that you can personally relate to. I am not endorsing Twinkies, I just like the word.

Let’s get one thing straight: I am a woman and I am in charge of my own body. You’d think that a simple statement like that wouldn’t need a special announcement, well, apparently, as it turns out, it does. Woman get objectified in so many ways, that if I start having to list them, I would sit here until the end of time. But see, it’s not just women in general, the faceless crowd of high-pitched voices, but every single woman that you have met, has been exposed to this uncomfortable feeling of objectification.

And before you shake your head and go to the happy place in your mind, that tells you that I am one more of these feminist do-gooders that have no idea how the world works and that just want to push their feminist agenda on you, I want to remind you, that you, regardless of your background, too have at one point or another, felt like that what is happening to you is out of your hands. Regardless of what this feeling might be tied to and what triggered it, maybe your education, your personal history, your sexual preferences, the way you look or what ever else, at one point in time, you too have experienced inequality. It might have been a long time ago, you might not remember (or want to remember) the needle-like pain you felt in your chest, the day you realized, that you are not the same as the person next to you and someone called you out on it.

And this pain? Well, it’s one that changes the way you look at the world and the way you look at yourself. Sometimes it feels like Twinkies that have been laying out in the sun too long and all their deliciousness is now stuck to the plastic wrapper. Remember as a child you were so excited about your little sweet treat only to discover that all of the sugary goodness has now been spoiled by external influences, e.g. the sun, or the stupid heavy book that smashed the Twinkies. And what ever pain it is, you are battling with, I am sure you can relate to the sad spoiled Twinkies feeling.

You could try to convince the little child within you that the Twinkie still tastes the same, but we all know, that you eat with your eyes as well as with your taste-buds. But why is it, that we cannot accept the difference? I mean it still smells like a Twinkie, still tastes like a Twinkie, still feels like a Twinkie, but it’s just not the same. And just like that, I wonder, why is it, that we cannot accept the difference in the people next to us? Why are we trying so desperately to separate the others from us, when we all are the same?

I guess, partly, because we feel that the pains that we endure are unique to us. We imagine that we are the only ones, in the history of ever, that had to go through the difficulties that we are faced with, but guess what, it’s simply not true. We all had our fair share of smashed up Twinkies in our backpacks, we all were waiting in the rain for someone to come and pick us up, we all were hoping for a callback from a job, good news from the doctor and happiness that we got the last pair of jeans in our size. We all had good days and bad days. We are not special, we are the same. We just have to convince ourselves of that, and that’s the hardest part.

Having to share a Twinkie, when it was all you could think about all day long, and then having to evenly divide it into two, three or four parts. Oh, the injustice, when all you wanted was two bites of sugary goodness to yourself. The grief, you feel, the longing for more. But see, when you share your Twinkies with four people, I promise you, your act of kindness will be magnified tenfold because the next time you are out of luck, the ones you shared your Twinkies with will share with you, and after all, is this not worth sharing all the Twinkies in the world?

Can you imagine, you sharing a Twinkie can give someone else faith in humanity, a simple act like that, who knew? So instead of separating yourself from the rest, instead of trying to set clear boundaries for property, just leave the window open and see what happens.