To Be a Woman

I had a horrible weekend.  It was me.  I was feeling very emotional, very sad, very unhappy.  To those who really know me, I’m very private with personal stuff, which can be good, but it can also be bad.  This weekend, it was bad.  I’m also not an overly emotional person, but when the emotions are “right there,” I can’t stop them.  It’s hard for me to put words to them and especially hard for me to vocalize them, because usually the vocalization of my emotions is accompanied by tears and I can’t talk and cry at the same time, so I’m left with this running dialog with myself in my head.  That, my friends, can be a problem.

I’m fine now.  Much better.  Life’s all right.  Not perfect, but all right. 

Funny thing…when I’m feeling emotional, I clean. I mean really clean.  So, in the span of the last three weeks, I have gathered bags upon bags of stuff to give away and found things I had forgotten existed.  One of those things came to me in 1993, when I was a senior in high school.  My dear friend, Pam, gave me an envelope and said, “This reminded me of you.”  It was a Nike ad from a magazine.  I looked at it and figured she was being silly, since I am not the person you think of when you think of Nike.  I have plenty of bruises and scars to prove that to you.  Later, she asked me if I had read it and I had to admit that I hadn’t. 

I took it home and read it.  Really read it.  Then, I read it again.  I read it so many times and realized she was right.  It reminded me of me too!  I kept that ad, folded into eighths in my hope chest for the last 17-plus years (yikes, I’m old!).  My heart was warmed when I found that silly old ad again.  Maybe some of it doesn’t fit me now, but the sentiment is there. 

I’m thankful for my friend, Pam, who years ago thought of me.  I was so thankful for her again when I came across this ad when I so needed to reread it and know that emotions are okay. 

 

To Be A Woman: 

Oh, you’re so emotional.

                There you are all caught up in your emotions, wearing your heart on your sleeve, wearing your heart on every piece of clothing you own. You cry at the drop of a hat. You cry absolute buckets. You cry me a river.

                You’re a woman (you can’t help it); you’re a girl (now, don’t get me wrong); you’re a woman and you’re so emotional about everything and

                even at those times when you’re perfectly rational and perfectly capable, somebody somewhere will look at you and say (like it’s the worst thing in the world)

                Oh you’re so emotional

And of course, that really makes you want to scream.

                And then just as soon as you don’t weep, which is most of the time anyway, and you’re cool and calm and absolutely brilliant under pressure somebody somewhere will say you’re too cool and too calm and then, of course,  you’re suddenly and forever called insensitive.

                Ah, to be a woman.

Somewhere in the middle of all these assumptions and all these labels is the way you really are. You are kind (that’s why we have hearts). You are strong (or you wouldn’t have made it this far). You are fearless (or you would’ve hidden your heart long ago). And because you wear your heart so easily sometimes

                you know how easily it is broken.

So through time, you have learned to protect it. You learn to take it for long walks. You learn to let it breathe deeply. You learn to treat it with respect.

                And, through time, you have learned to move it and bend it and make it accountable, because the best way to keep a heart alive is to be unafraid to use it. And you are so very good at using it.

Listen.

                Your heart is beating. This means you are alive. Your body is moving. This means you cannot be stopped. The world and all its labels are calling you. You’d love to answer. But you’re moving so fast you can’t hear a thing.