The Women in My Life

My last blog post was shared by one of my mother’s friends.  I don’t know the woman that well.  But after an eight hour day at the climbing wall, where I dealt with little girls crying and people asking me the same questions about climbing over and over again, I came across this comment.

I never thought about my writing being gendered.  But I guess it came across as feminine to this woman.  I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be perceived in such a way.

I have always had close female friends.  It all started with my mom and my sister.  Then, it turned into close female friends through elementary school. Then, middle school, then girlfriends in high school and college.  And now, all my Snapchat best friends are female.

If I was born a woman, I would attend Wellesley College, where my mother, my aunt, my grandma and my wonderful sister attend.  Unfortunately, I have had to scratch my own way through post-secondary education.  It’s been an interesting path to say the least.

My greatest heroes are women.  Mary Oliver, Sarah Kay, Lauren Groff, Martha Beck, Brené Brown, Lena Dunham, Danielle LaPorte, Carole King to name a few.  And there is another handful in my private life.  I’m sure you know who you are.

I am not saying I don’t have male role models, but I look up to a lot of women.  I look up to people who are interested in making the world a better place.  I strive to exude happiness and warmth in my daily routine.  It is really hard to do that while competing with the guy next to me.

I like focusing on kindness and accommodating people in social situations.  I like creating spaces where people feel welcomed, where people are laughing and enjoying everything around them.

When I work at the climbing gym,  I focus on staying open and letting the client create the space they want during their hour with me.  I hate dominating the space right off the bat.  I like watching the energy unfold in groups.  I do not believe in designated leadership.  I believe in organic creation of spaces where people are all engaging in that give and take.

So when that women responded to my post and said it sounded like a woman wrote it, I was proud.  That post was about inspiration and fun.  If the two are associated, then rock on.

For the past three days, I have driven to and from work listening to the Beautiful Writer’s Podcast.  I hear these successful women talk about their lives and realize their thoughts and concerns are the same as my thoughts and concerns.  I fist pump the air every time I hear something exciting.  It happens all the time.

I appreciate their honesty, their courage, their impeccable use of language and how they are unapologetically themselves.  I aspire to be a person who inspires people.  I aspire to be a person who creates spaces for people to explore themselves.  I aspire to be someone who can find connections between people who seem completely different from each other.

Because I am a twenty two year old kid, and I identify strongly with my heroes.  Their ages are 80, 27, 37, 53, 50, 29, 46 and 74.  And guess what, they are all female.  #ageisanillusion

And that is just off the top of my head.  I’m sure there are many more.  This never really occurred to me until today.  I have cycled through many books in the last month or so, and almost all the writers have been female.

They have helped me map out my brain, they have given me solace and they have become a huge part of my life.  Call it whatever you want, but I love spending time in peoples’ worlds who are interested in helping me out.

Whenever I read Brené Brown, I immerse myself completely in her world.  She is a lovely storyteller and writer.  She notices things about the world that I can’t even start to put into words.

My mom is a Martha Beck Life Coach and I am going to a conference in Austin with one of her friends in April.  I am slowly stepping into that world where people are trying to help other people.  It just so happens that many of the people and authors I find are women.

I like the show Girls because Lena Dunham has the guts to go to places in her show that others do not.  She talks about sex, mental illness and what it is like to grow up as a twentysomething.

Today, I accept that help.  I have spent years shirking people who try to help me.  One of my greatest challenges I try to overcome in my life is taking ownership for my weaknesses.  I am not perfect.  I need people in my life to help me.  Love is support.  Some people like to add challenge in there, but I think it sounds an awful lot like control.

It takes a lot of guts to open yourself up completely and let life sweep you into the sky.  There is magic everywhere.  Every day is a miracle.  Open yourself to the corners of what you think is “your designated market”.  If I stuck to the NFL and Anchorman, I would have never found politics, poetry and climbing.

I love that women on facebook think my blog was written by a woman.  I’m still struggling with what exactly that means.  But what makes me most happy is that I am connecting with people way outside of my “usual demographic”.

I have struggled through some tough times in my life.  Who doesn’t?  Those times have forced me to cut the fat and find what is truly meaningful.

The tide has come in and out.  It has left me with rock solid ideas.  Those rocks and mud flats are filled with love, support, trust, openness and the wild acceptance of all parts of myself.

I’ll leave you with a lovely poem my friend sent me called “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver, female, eighty years old.

Beauty exists in all parts of the world, not just in the few feet in front of you.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

peace, love and flying V’s,

CR