The women in my family weren’t dealt the best hands in life.
Collectively, they’ve had to navigate everything from absent and abusive husbands to severe health issues, all while working full-time jobs and raising gaggles of children. Because the to-do list was long, they were often juggling several things at once. And because their vision of partner-ship in these endeavors became nothing more than a pipe dream, they learned how to do it all solo.
Naturally, I learned this talent too.
Over the years, being a one-woman show became a badge of honor. Group projects with classmates resulted in me volunteering to take care of everything before adding my teammates’ names to the project. For tasks at work, I would hoard assignments rather than delegate them because I knew someone else would take twice as long to do a half-assed job that I would have to redo anyway. While this type of behavior initially brought me a sense of pride, the pride I felt in being able to do it all eventually stopped making me happy. Instead, this brand of overdrive made me tired, resentful, and ultimately feel trapped in a life where I was drowning in responsibility because I had trained everyone that I could do it all. But the notion of asking anyone for help was tangled up in this idea that doing so meant I was weak, and I’d be damned if I let anyone believe that was true about me.
Then, a tragedy happened in my life.
My grandmother, Cleo, got cancer, and her time on this earth was cut short way too soon. When she passed, the grief I felt overpowered my ability to put on a brave face. My insides hurt so much that the feeling showed on the outside, and I couldn’t continue in the same way – the way she and my mother had taught me! That grief and pain was all-consuming until I learned to cope with the intensity. First, through running. Then through writing, an activity I loved to do when I was younger before the dreaded to-do list took over.
Eventually, my writing morphed into a blog I started called Dear Strong Woman – in honor of my grandmother – where each blog post began with “Dear Strong Woman” as the salutation. Sometimes the “Strong Woman” to whom I wrote was my grandmother. Sometimes it was a friend going through something. But most often, I was writing to myself about the way my life broke open when she left this world.
And that’s when the magic happened.
In a surprising turn of events, what I was sharing resonated with others so much so that I found myself connecting with strangers and reconnecting with old acquaintances about deep, uncommon topics of conversation. We shared our struggles and our fears, but more so, over time this developed into a community of support.
This community became the lifeline I didn’t know I needed. As I began to deconstruct my life and put the pieces back together in the way I wanted, connecting with others in this space helped me stay accountable to create a new vision for my life and kept me inspired to forge ahead.
That’s what I want this space to be for you.
A tool to keep you on the path to sharing your story with the world, even if that story is a work in progress. In fact, I hope it is as we are never truly done evolving.
And because the very act of being out loud is one of extreme courage, I’ll be referring to you as “Strong Woman” now and always. I encourage you to start relating to yourself as a Strong Woman too.
So with that, it’s time. to grab the mic, Strong Woman. It’s time to share the gift of you with the world. I can’t wait to hear your story.