Ways of Womanhood ~ Resolution for 2010

I remember cringing the first time I heard the word in the context of something I would experience: womanhood.

And I’m not talking puberty and periods.

I’m talking growing up my little girl self and becoming a woman.

Whoa nilly. I still remember thinking “Ewww. I don’t wanna!”

Here’s why….

Back then, whenever I first heard that phrase I was probably 8, maybe even younger. And it implied growing up. It demanded ‘becoming someone’ I didn’t know yet. It obligated me. And worse? It was inevitable.

Oh, my adventurous tom-boyish self wanted zero and I mean ZERO to do with “obligation” – or “have – to” anythings and inevitables.

Something in me panicked over losing my freedom.

Something in me feared I would have to give up long bike rides and scabby knees or never ending climbs in every tree branch or running around the neighborhood playing with my friends.

On the surface I rebelled against bras and bikinis and prided myself on playing with barbies (sssshhh) and batons.

I pretended not to be in awe of my teenage glowing goddess of a sister by sneering her choices and mimicking her ways.

At her 10 year old birthday party themed as Cinderella, I remember marching my 8 year old self over to my grandmother, the birthday host, and announcing so proudly for all to hear: “Gigi? You see all this silly fussy nonsense girly girly stuff? I want nothing to do with this! For my birthday party, we’re doing Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn!”

(Assertive little bugger I was claiming my right to define my party’s theme, albeit two year’s hence).

I remember my grandmother’s tender touch and loving nod. She was so wise. Rather than shun my view in front of the party goers or agree with me and risk harming my sister, she simply announced “Tresha, your sister’s birthday carriage needs a strong coachman to steer these horses. Would you take the honors?” And salvaging my dignity (I’d given this speech in shorts amidst a group of party dresses little girls), she passed me the pretend horse’s reigns. Wise woman that grandmother of mine is.

I conceded with little argument. I loved this roll are you kidding? Leading my grown up sister?:)

But a deeper look into those years, I feared ‘womanhood’ because back then, I wanted nothing to do with anything that meant I’d have to give up ‘being Tre.’ There was safety in my childhood, it was a known kingdom full of make believe and wonder and imagination….friends and scenes, stuffed animals, slinkies, skateboards, and swingsets I already knew. “Womanhood” was that land of the unknown where all the un-relatable grown-ups lived. Ewww. 🙂

Well, here it ’tis a coupla decades later and ya know what’s true?

I still have that feeling: wanting ZERO to do with having to give up being Tre :)–being true to myself.

And on this almost eve of a new year, there’s so much I’m thinking about. But ironically, one of the deepest goals I have is to give myself permission to really evolve my sense of womanhood.

Funny, huh? That the very phrase that I once shunned now beckons me to really evolve, befriend, live?

It’s exciting and scary.

Exciting because I’m all about shedding what isn’t supportive and doesn’t work when it comes to choices we’ve made for ourselves.

But scary because evolving my sense of womanhood has little initially to do with any externals. It has everything to do with further establishing qualities or a ways of being we seek to live and then committing to that very essence.

Some of you may snicker and sneer “Whatever woman. Shouldn’t you know by now the kind of womanhood you seek to live and by golly shouldn’t you be living her? Hello. ”

Aww, well, to those voices and judgements I’ll offer this: I have surely identified with and lived a sense of womanhood up til now. But here’s the thing: it needs to grow deeper. A lot deeper.

And here’s why: I’m more aware than ever I’ve been hiding. A lot. A lot of my innermost yearnings to share and tell 🙂 ..a lot of my deepest desires to go and do. And a lot of the being I seek to express.

And all for the same reasons I squirmed when I first heard the phrase ‘womanhood’ when I was 6…because I’ve feared losing me in the process.

Silly?

Perhaps.

Foolish?

Maybe.

But I can’t be the only one to notice that we humans tend to cling to our stories, our dramas, our nows a bit too dependently.

We imagine days without drama and then go on and on convincing ourselves of how enmeshed we are in it.

We devote ourselves to making real change and yet we cling to the very same habits that keep us stuck in the rut.

We speak of creating global peace and ending suffering and yet we beat up ourselves heinously day in and day out in the mental warfare of just trying to survive.

I surely have.

So what’s gonna be any different if I sit here on this eve of a new decade professing a yearning to evolve my sense of womanhood in a deeper level, a more authentic level?

Well, it’s a first step. A public admission.

For you see, I’m stretching my sense of womanhood to include this very thing: no more hiding.

Repeat: no more hiding.

For all its wonder and darkness and growth and stumbles and ups and downs and hells and heavens, my life is what it is. And there’s been enough steadying on, in spite of so much, that warrants sharing, that beckons my offering in hopes some choices I’ve made may help another.

No more hiding.

No more yearning but not doing.

No more pining, yet not striving.

No more wishing yet staying stuck.

I am so aware of the ways I keep myself hidden and will expose those more later.

But in gently owning my right to grow, I know that the only thing I will be giving up is the baggage that wants to keep me stuck, and I’d argue the stuff that I don’t wanna cling to anyway.

And perhaps this is the whole point: that in pushing ourselves for depth, we give ourselves permission to let go what doesn’t serve, what keeps us imprisoned, what suffocates our voice and tries to silence our breath.

It’s funny. I’ve spent many years blaming ‘other’ for this suffocating.

And yet, it’s really been more internal, my own succoming to shunnings or condemnings or loathing from within.

I wrote a post yesterday which was the beginning of a story I must tell.

And the floodtides (for this blog) of comments and feedback and thank you’s for braving that story have left me in utter awe.

But it was only one glimpse. And I knew as I wrote it I was still hiding…withholding…there’s so much more to share.

Step by step.

And it’s my hope through such sharings, in growing me the way I know I must grow, that in some measure it will encourage others to  stop running, stop hiding, squelch fears and press on.

We owe our sense of womanhood that investment of total authenticity, don’t we?

We owe each other that surely, wouldn’t you agree?

So…it’s not always neat and tidy, hardly ever fully navigable, and most definitely unpredictable.

But in resolving to stop hiding and own my voice to broaden my sense of womanhood by living and sharing her more fully, I have to trust rather than losing Tre, I’m further becoming her. 😉

Here’s to ensuring our stories….May we stretch ourselves in ways that help and heal our expression of woman in 2010…..