“For the ordinary girls. For all the girls who broke my heart. And their mothers. And their daughters. And if I could reach back through time and space to that girl I was, to all my girls, I would tell you to take care, to love each other, fight less, dance dance dance until you’re breathless. And goddamn, girl. Live.”

Throughout the ending part of “Ordinary Girls”, it was relieving to read that even though she had such a childhood, she was still able to make it past all that and look back at it as fun times. When she went back home, she couldn’t help but feel regret and sadness because she had left. Even though she was only gone for a year and a half, so much had changed. Her mom’s health was getting worse, her best friend was getting married, her abuela’s house was destroyed, her dad’s store destroyed, etc. She then writes, “How do we keep living in the world when everything we built is gone? How do we even go on?” This made me think really hard because we live for others and for the stuff we built, but when they’re all gone, what do we live for now? What I thought was that even though everything is gone, we should still live for those who are gone and experience things for them, anything that was built can be rebuilt. 

At the end where Jaquira states who she writes for, it made me realize that this book wasn’t made just for herself and the people in her life but also every girl that felt lost and labeled as weird, ugly, all the above. The ending sentences made me feel nostalgic because it reminded me of that time I was having a deep talk with my friends about the past and the future. We brought up so many memories we had together and talked about advice we would give to our younger selves. I regretted not taking more care of myself and people that I cared about and just living life. Jaquira’s last sentence brought back memories from my childhood. “And if I could reach back through time and space to that girl I was, to all my girls, I would tell you to take care, to love each other, fight less, dance dance dance until you’re breathless. And goddamn, girl. Live.” This sentence kind of made me rethink my life choices and also questions such as, “is this what I want to do in life, should I give up on this idea and go back with my original idea? Overall I really enjoyed the ending because it was mostly about Jaquira reflecting on her life and remembering everything she had to go through and using that to keep herself moving.