Figuring Out How To Thrive As Me

I'm a feminist.  I'm not the boot-wearing, I'll-trek-1,000-miles-just-to-prove-I'm-better-than-any-man type.  My boots are more like hippie sandals showing off my chipping salmon-pink nail polish.   Regardless of my footwear and what statement they do or do not make, I still proudly claim any young woman can do anything she wants and strongly believe every little girl should have a role model in any chosen profession.  I celebrate my uniqueness as a female - that is my feminist mantra.

That said, it took a pretty powerful man to give me the tools and vocabulary to find that mantra.  It took a man who was strong enough to listen, brave enough to let me stew and sift ideas for weeks, even months on end, and daring enough to love me even when I didn't love myself.

I never liked the movie Jerry McGuire.  I didn't get it, didn't think it was romantic, and I loathed that scene where Tom Cruis says, "You complete me."  I don't need anyone to complete any part of me, let alone all of me.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I told the ultra sound technician doing the scan that I didn't want to know the gender because I had this fear that I was pregnant with a boy, and I would spend the next five months lamenting and brokenhearted that SHE was really a HE.  I wanted a little girl so badly and for reasons I still, to this day cannot put into words.  I wanted a girl because I wanted her to see she could do and be anything.  I didn't want a girl so I could raise her to feel inadequate, or somehow lacking because she didn't have some big, great love story to back her up.  Todd was fine with not knowing the gender, he was fine with my fears and I think he secretly prayed for a little girl as well.  Not because he wanted someone just like his wife (cause that would have been a seriously scary thought) but because his heart wanted to be wrapped around some little nothing of curls and tutu frills and shinny, sparkly shoes.

In the eleven years I've been with this man of mine, I've learned a kind of quiet confidence.  A slow and powerful roar that says, "I am woman.  I can do and be whatever I want... even when I don't know what that is or means."  It comes from evenings when he has loved how I look in his old sweats.  It's come from his encouragement to embrace some new role I swore I'd never do before.  It's from years, literal years, of silently taking a step back, putting in an approving nod when needed, and always, always, always being there to catch me if I fell.  And the thing was, I didn't fall.  I didn't fall.  My own fears held me back for the better part of my life.  Fears of failure, fears of not being enough.  Fears that so-and-so wouldn't approve.  Fears that I would be too much.  Too much drama, too much emotion, too much energy, too much whatever.  Fears that I wasn't enough of a nurturer, friend, companion, planner.  Fears that I didn't look right, that I was too fat or too thin.  Too "athletic" or too "plain."  Through all the fears over the last decade, he was there.  I never became his project.  I was never something for him to 'fix' because, I think, on some level he realized one of two things.  1) I wasn't broken or 2) His carpentry skills to fix me were seriously lacking.  Either way, he just chose to walk, with me, next to me, holding my hand when I let him, and bumping my shoulder when I didn't... just so I'd know he was still there.

I'm infinitely grateful for the marriage I have today.  It's been a hard fight, and I by no means think we've made it.  I do, however, realize that what I have is worth more than all the riches in all the world. My marriage made me realize that I'm a force to be reckoned with, me, just me.  My marriage made me realize that I'm free to make any choice I want.  My marriage made me stronger, more resilient because it showed me the strength of team to build up an individual.  The solidity of coming at an enemy in numbers.  There's something profoundly amazing when you realize that you CAN do something on your own.  Even more astounding though, is when you realize that you can accomplish whatever because you've been given the gift of love and friendship to explore, discover, and grow into that person who can do that thing... that person you thought you could never be.

There is an idea that you can 'pick yourself up by your bootstraps' and 'just suck it up and do it' but here's the thing about girls:  We don't want to just endure.  We don't want to just survive.  We want to thrive.  We want to make things beautiful in a way that invites others into our celebration.  Not to lord it over someone that we think we're pretty amazing and they're less, but because (I think) we want others to experience the mountain tops with us.

I saw this video a few days ago and it resonated with a very deep part of me.  Yes.  I agree.  Entirely.

In this crazy space we find ourselves in, I've been able to see things more clearly, more poignantly.  I was sitting in a meeting today with two friends, listening to them talking and I realized that we're all doing what we think is best, striving for our best.  Best for us as moms, best for us as wives, but ultimately, best for us as individual women.  Someday, not long from now, the kids will be gone.  When that day comes, I want to still be comfortable in my own skin.  Comfortable enough to hear my own voice saying the things I think, the things I believe, the things I feel.

Are there moments when I feel inadequate, ill-equipped and simply not enough for the task at hand?  Absolutely.  I'm a mother.  I'm a wife.  I'm a woman.  I'm going to feel less than capable for the monumental job of raising, shaping, and moulding the babies before me because, well,  I am.  But I no longer feel defined as a person by the number of kids I have, the size of my pants or the letter on my bra.  I'm not defined by my husband's salary or the size of my home or how meticulously (or not) my house has been decorated.  I no longer feel like I'm ONLY what that person says I am, or this person wants from me.

"We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God" (Hebrews 6:19)

I think, somehow, in the random snippets of time with God between feedings, peanut butter bird feeders out of toilet paper rolls, scrubbing the mud encrusted face of a child and trying not to eat one more thing that will just go straight to my thighs and force me to return, once again to my husband's sweatpants, I have somehow started listening to the One who made the birds, the mud (and that sweet face) and even those thighs... and sweatpants for that matter.  He said I'm enough.  He made us and with us, He declared "it is good"(Genesis 1:31).  He said He'd be my anchor... and He sent me a physical foundation for those times when my knees would buckle and I'd need a bit more than just a promise on a page in a 2,000 year old text.  I'm so thankful for a God who provides, in advance, so that when I'm in need, my need is met.  I'm so thankful for a God who knew the only way I'd learn some lessons would be through an amazing partner who would walk just behind me, never thinking to scream from rooftops, jump on a couch, or see the need to tattoo my name on his chest... because that would irritate me.  A lot.  I'm thankful that I'm a woman.  I'm thankful that I'm strong, independent, and so much in love with my husband and the Father who have both showed me how truly amazing I am, all by myself... even in my hippie sandals with chipping salmon-pink nail polish.