As I celebrate Women’s History Month by escaping the snow into the adventures of the March sisters, Elle Woods, Barbie, Oprah Winfrey, Christina Yang and countless other icons, I reflect on my womanhood with a full heart. It’s been fun and beautiful and scary and heartbreaking, and I’m only coming up on the end of year one of being an “adult” woman.
So I suppose that I can cut myself some slack for not having become a lawyer, a media mogul or a surgeon quite yet. For now, my womanhood defines the way that I am a friend, a sister and a daughter — which happen to be my favorite roles.
Sometimes, my awareness of my womanhood creeps up on me like the way the roots of my hair used to tickle the top of my head when my mom would braid my hair on the day of a cross country race. Sometimes it boils within me like my stomach does when I see my little sister cry. And sometimes it makes me feel lighter than air, like I feel when I’m curling my best friend’s hair in my dorm room while we listen to the best of the early 2000s.
There’s nothing quite like it, and I think that’s because each of these powerful feelings, among millions more, are felt for the other women in my life. These feelings are known and shared amongst us, rooted in a deep concern and empathetic love for one another. This bond, to me, is the lifeblood of womanhood, and it is something for which I am more grateful than I can describe.
I am grateful to my mother for demonstrating strength and empathy for others that extends beyond the boundaries of her own pain. I am grateful to my sister for reminding me that there is no heartbreak that a hard belly laugh won’t cure. I am grateful to my childhood best friend for holding my hand on our first and last days of school, and for never forgetting me when life moved us apart.
I am grateful to my high school friends for cheering me on and always giving me a place to come back to. I am grateful to my college friends for growing with me, wiping my tears and being my everyday girls. I am grateful for my new sorority sisters, who have shown me that sometimes, miracles happen and you find the people you need most by just taking a chance. The protection and support I feel within these relationships because of what we learn from one another is what carries me through the times that womanhood hurts.
Because sometimes it really does.
Sometimes it stings like it did when I was pulled aside and told to cover up my eighth grade graduation dress because the straps on the high neck maxi dress weren’t three fingers wide. Sometimes it aches like my stomach did when the boys in my ninth grade biology class started focusing more on my body than the words I was saying. And sometimes it just leaves me speechless, like I was when I realized that words about bodies can turn into laws on our bodies.
Womanhood sometimes means unanswered questions, but it can also mean having the courage to ask them.
My bond with women is what helps me overcome, understand and cope with the parts of life that forget about us. It’s what keeps me grounded when I start to doubt my ability to succeed and when I need a reminder that even if I can’t relate with every woman’s experience, sometimes listening is enough. Sometimes listening is everything.
Womanhood doesn’t have to mean beating the odds and becoming a lawyer, a media mogul or a surgeon. Although, it certainly can. It isn’t founded on anatomy, motherhood, a period, a job, or lack thereof, or a marriage either. My womanhood is a promise to myself, to honor my emotions, to honor my dreams, to honor my body and to honor my sisters in life.
My womanhood cannot be reduced to a single part of my life because it is every part of my life, good and bad. And on any given day, whether it feels like a weight on my shoulders or a cloud beneath my feet that lets me soar through the sky, I am proud of it.
Happy Women’s History Month!