Every day here is like deer season. We are allowed to flourish in this space free of men our age, only seeing them when we choose, allowed to be more genuine relaxed versions of ourselves. Do we appreciate it enough? For us, it’s more than just one day a year, so the novelty wears off. You don’t need boys to get into petty squabbles, but they sure help. We belong to ourselves as much as we belong to the numbers we attach to our self worth. GPA, weight, shots on goal; this is what it is to be a girl. It’s pulling yourself out of bed for your 9:00 am after staying up until 4:00 working on a paper. It’s doing one more pull up. It’s crying in your friend’s arms in a bathroom stall for reasons you don’t understand. It’s raw emotions that you allow yourself to feel because there’s no man around to make snide comments about overreacting. Here, we can be the best, the worst, the most genuine, and the most artificial versions of ourselves, and no one can tell us not to be. Every day here is like deer season.