on being a woman

some time ago, a woman asked me

who is the most important woman in your life?

i thought long and hard. it was a challenge to sort through all the women in my life and decide which one had the most influence over me. and then it was obvious.

my mum, i said, because she has taught me everything i know about being a woman.

this response got me a cocked eyebrow and a somewhat cynical "hm"

i have never stopped fretting about that response.
it was the truth. the absolute truth.

maybe, i think, it is because i used the word woman so loosely.

what does it really mean to be a woman?

hell if i know.

but i do have a good sense of what it means to be a woman in my bloodline.

we are notoriously strong.
capable. and fiercely independant.
yet we walk a fine line of insecurity. constant wondering. constant worrying.

and this is where i found myself.

walking this fine line of capability and strong-willed to speak my mind

but scared shitless of what it would reveal about me.

too much?
i took a breath.
and i said it.

a rock

i held a rock in the palm of my hand.
a rather unusual rock, it was round, smooth, chosen just for this sort of activity.
for some reason, this rock made me feel comfortable. which, in this context, translates into brave.
like i could say what i felt, and the rock would understand.
even if the other 30 people in the room could not.
the rock in the palm of my hand would understand.
maybe this rock would be friend. not foe.
i took a shot.

i start.

i have been thinking...
about the reprecussions of going to someone...a professional someone
and saying the words


i feel fat.


this person might look at me. might wonder what on earth i could be talking about.
they might judge me. they might send me on my way with a diet.
they might want to prescribe me pills.
these are all things i am not interested in. because i feel like it is unnecessary.

nay, it is just wrong.

to tell me it is my problem is to completely deny that it is, in fact, a sociological problem.

in the lowest low, muddled with confusion and frustration, i confided in another woman

i feel weird. like..i'm fat? but...i'm not?

welcome to my life.

and that, that is the exact moment that i understood.
welcome to being a woman in today's society.
surely i knew this before, this delicate balance between fat and too terribly thin.
and how, as a woman, i was supposed to walk this line.
i did. i knew all of this.
but i did not know a spell of self-loathing would sweep me over in the way it did.
and knowing that myself, an advocate for beauty in all forms, had been duped into believing otherwise
was a guilt trip that hit me like a motherfucking freight train.

the rock in my palm, i looked up. and i saw women on the brink of blinking a tear.

aye, they get it.

it was the very same look i had when i discovered that my four year old cousin feels fat.
she is four. and ashamed of her body.
i swallowed back tears. hard. and i silently vouched to change it.
change it all.
i would not play this game.
i would not give in. or give up.
and, someday, young girls everywhere
will love love love this thing we call a body.