The new year is here. We’re over a week into 2020 and things are moving along swimmingly. For me, 2019 was a humdinger for sure and I made it… so did you. There’s victory in that. Sometimes, we get so excited about new opportunities and expectations that we neglect to give weight and respect to what we’ve already made it through.
We don’t want to keep our eyes fixed on the rearview mirror, BUT every now and again you need to take a glance. Let it show you what you made it through, the ways you conquered things that were trying to conquer you and let it all paint a picture of your accomplishments and work that still needs to be done.
To that end, I want to walk us through things we need to do to elevate ourselves in the next year and beyond. Some of these things are written specifically with me in mind and some are for you, but they’ll all work together for our good.
Don’t get married. Don’t have kids. I said what I said. I got married and had a child in my late 20’s. I was 28. I would encourage every woman to wait at least that long. Secure education. Secure financial stability. Secure yourself. I’m a stay at home mom NOW, but when we met I was taking care of myself. So much of who we are as women is tied to how we interact with men. The ideology that if you’re not married or seriously dating, then something is wrong with you, must be killed.
There is no correlation between your value and your desire or ability to secure a man.
Here’s what I know. I know that in my past I have judged people for being in a way that made me uncomfortable. “Why is she so loud? Why does she always have something to say about everything? Damn.” These people usually irked me. They had not attacked me or been negative toward me in any way. And yet— I was annoyed.
I realized that my annoyance was about me; not them. It was directly related to my insecurities… to my fear. I was uncomfortable because these women were free in a way that I was not. They had either consciously or unconsciously decided that how they showed up in the world was not for the comfort of other folks. In other words— Their behavior was for them; not me.
Then, something broke in me as I approached my 40’s. I remember telling a dear friend, “I just feel so open.” I didn’t even understand the extent to which I was open and how my life would change as a result. I just felt the opening so strongly. And it wasn’t that I didn’t care what other people wanted or thought. It was more that what I wanted and thought was finally my priority. It was as if everything I was suppressing refused to remain submerged. My heart and mind insisted on BEING in the way God initially created me. I remembered who I was and I refused to abandon her again.
We need to re-contextualize strength. Like, what does it even mean to be “the strong one”?
Because it is NOT the absence of fear or pain or desire or disappointment. I believe that we have, in error, taken a patriarchal view of strength and applied it to our emotional sensibilities in an effort to make us appear less weak. They told us that strength and weakness cannot dwell in the same space. Men, for too long, set the expectation for tolerable behavior for women. Women are killing themselves to meet it. And women are cosigning this behavior. It must stop.
I am trying to negotiate an understanding of literal strength, figurative strength and the reality of my actual strength. What does it look like? What does it feel like? How have I previously misunderstood and in turn misrepresented strength. I am currently being forced to confront these feelings of wanting to be strong, solvent and also having to embrace that pieces of me breaking.
I’ve said it many times and I’ll say it again today. You are your only competition. The moment you start competing with other people; you've already lost. The only person I want to be better than is the woman I was yesterday. And listen, I think the woman I was yesterday is pretty dope, but I know on this journey there’s always room for growth. I cannot compare the today me against the today you because it is impossible to do and it just doesn’t make sense.
In scientific terms, when doing an experiment, to see the similarities and differences in something you would have to watch those things exclusively from start to finish; recording everything. You would need to know all variables or things effecting the subjects of the experiment. And therein lies the problem with social media. You can not see all the variables in the life of someone else.
Isn’t this what often happens between women? Particularly in the workplace. Men pulling strings that shouldn’t exist. As we often say…. It is what it is. I guess I can get with Angela deciding, initially not to work with Nuri. *slight eye roll. The truth is— Angela hit her #ChooseYou dougie on Nuri and I didn’t like it. Her behavior indicated that she was the most beautiful, powerful, worthy person she knows. We MUST fight the urge to begrudge women this right because it does not fall in line with what we believe we deserve. There is enough of everything we desire for all of us. You might just have to wait your turn.
To be clear, social media doesn’t really make anyone hate their life. You hate your life because you hate your life. You continue to make the same choices, revisit the same places, roll around with the same individual and wonder why nothing in your life is different. I believe Einstein had words to say about that kind of behavior. He called it insanity. Einstein was correct. Imagine that. Unfortunately, you haven’t heard the wise words of the late great Einstein. So, you stay on the ferris wheel. Professing to hate every minute of it. Screaming to get off. Yet, never removing your safety belt. Never standing. Never being miserable enough to stop the revolutions.
I thought of all the times I was afraid to be me. How I worked hard to be acceptable and appropriate and good. Acceptable and appropriate and good do not benefit the folks who are being confined to it. I was bombarded with memories of the struggle to return to me. How it took my whole life to get back to a little girl with almost just right shoes so I could free her from the irrational, suffocating expectations of other people.
So, first we have to acknowledge the facts. We are plus size. We are overweight. We said we wanted to lead a more healthy lifestyle. We KEEP saying we want to lead a more healthy lifestyle. We had three seasons to get our life together. Fall, Winter and Spring have passed. We didn’t get our life together. To that end, we are still chubby. Is there anything wrong with that? Nope— Unless you want to be something else.
