March 24, 2012

Give a little...

Women in America have a lot of expectations thrust upon them. We are supposed to be attractive, funny, charming, witty. We should be a respected colleague at work, manage a household, cook a delicious meal, raise perfect children, be good stewards of our resources . At any given time we should look put together, like we don't mind all these different roles and the responsibility that comes with them. Its no big thing, right?

Wrong, of course. And then you have women in other countries, who struggle to even locate clean water for their children. Thinking about that makes me feel so thankful for living where I live and having the things I have. My life is so good.

Somedays, though, I can get caught up in those socially imposed expectations. I can feel like a failure. I don't always look put together. There are things I don't know how to do. Meals don't always turn out great. I'm organized on Mondays, and it usually goes down hill from there. I'm not always the best I could be. I try really hard though, to fulfill my roles.

Today I realized i haven't really been taking care of myself. I've let my hair go. My skin is doing something funny and what the heck is this facial hair thing? Is that normal? Apparently it is, and women don't talk about it....they just quietly rip it out of their face, pretending that it was never there to begin with. All to fulfill a role. Why cant it just be a funny quirk we laugh about? Why do we have to rip it out quietly in our bathrooms? Anyways, the point is that I haven't been successful with all these different roles. But that's okay.

We try. And sometimes, we have to give ourselves grace, and realize that we don't have to be the best at everything. That we can just be ourselves and nothing more. We can give our children clean water. Does it matter if our hair is done and our car is brand new? No. What matters are the people we love, and building experiences and a rich life with them.

Maybe when we learn to do less, we will start living more.

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