Dear Woman…#IWD Edition.
Hey you, how are you?
Just a quick one. Are you grateful? With what you are doing, with where you currently are, with what you are working on, with who you’re hanging out with, with how you’re treating yourself, with every small choice you make…are you grateful?
If the answer to that is yes, that’s okay. If the answer is a no, that’s still okay. The idea behind this is not to make you feel bad or good, about yourself. It’s just that we often forget to take time to take stock of our present moments when we are on the grind, chasing the good life, climbing the corporate ladder, becoming successful and morphing into our ideal selves.
So, with that, let’s get to it. This one here, is close to my heart, and it’s been long overdue.
Dear woman,
I trust this finds you in a “fuck this” type of mood. The type of mood that has you feeling reckless, tired of being in the same place all this while and aching for some action, a change of scenery to remind you just what it feels like to be alive.
I might not know what keeps you grounded, what helps to keep you sane, but whatever it is, by all means, do it. You need to understand that constantly making apologies for doing what makes you happy will have you thinking that you need to have a valid reason to seek happiness. That if it doesn't make sense to those watching, then there is no point doing it. That’s a lie, and it’s about time you stopped subscribing to that hogwash.
When Lupita Nyong’o said that “No matter where you come from, your dreams are valid”, and Amanda Gorman said that “For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it”. (That’s it, that’s the sentence.)
This year, the theme for IWD was #ChooseToChallenge. And I don’t know if it’s just me, but when people talk about challenges, all that comes to mind is the hassle that come with it. The extra hours you’ll have to put in, the grit you’ll have to acquire, the thick skin you’ll have to grow etc. etc. It’s part of the process, but it does not happen overnight, so be kind with yourself.
Being a woman, in general, comes with a myriad of challenges. And if you’re reading this, you are in more ways than one, crushing it. I hope you honestly do take time to internalize that, and congratulate yourself for being an amazing human.
You need to know that society, (society here being both men and women),will try to convince you that being a woman is equivalent to being feminine. And they will try to box you into acting a certain way, being a certain way. Do not give them the power to categorize you, for they will always move the bar depending on what appeals to them at any given moment. Being a woman is not a black or white affair. There is a lot of grey area in which, if you allow yourself, you can discover what truly resonates with you, and the type of woman you want to be.
“We’re so quick to cut away pieces of ourselves to suit a particular relationship, a job, a circle of friends, incessantly editing who we are until we fit in.” ― Charles de Lint
Woman, choose to be you, not just for your own sake, but for the women around you. And as you carve out a space to be your authentic self, create room to accommodate those who are nothing like you. I think you need to know that whatever way you choose to hop onto the #ChooseToChallenge movement, it’s okay. Your contribution matters, no matter how small you think it might be. I think as women, we need to support each other more, starting with the life decisions we all get to make, be it career wise or in our personal lives.
Making the choice to challenge both yourself and societal norms will need you to be prepared. So educate yourself. Take a walk down memory lane and learn about women in history, read, allow yourself to question biases that have been passed down on you. Not sure how exactly the beauty myth affects how your life choices as a woman? There is a lot of material on the internet explaining all sorts of topics, seek it out. Expanding your thought processes and your ideas will always be worth it.
Allow yourself to be a liberal, to sit down with all the new ideas you collect along the way and make decisions on what will define you. In more ways than one, you shall have attained that fleeting feeling we all have come to associate with success and happiness, to be self-made.
And if along the way, you discover that you are not happy, and change is the only thing that will change that, then embrace change. You’re allowed to be different versions of yourself, so don’t ever feel like fitting in is the only way to make it through life.
Your dreams are valid, so is the work that comes with actualizing them. You are a light, both to yourself and to others. You get to decide whether you’ll run from that, or embrace it, and that’s where being brave comes into play.
As I end this, always remember to take up space. You may not realize it, but you may have been conditioned to shrink yourself, by others before you who learnt it from those before them, and those before them. And just because it has been happening for decades does not in any way make it right, so choose to make small mental notes to stop shrinking yourself. You matter, and you deserve to be here.
You deserve to take up space. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
With love and light,
A fellow woman.
