002. on navigating womanhood.

The hardest hood to live in.

It’s Friday night. 

Aside from Yeezy’s paws tip-toeing across the hardwood, the house is eerily quiet and dark. It’s tornado season in the countryside and a weather advisory just hit my phone. The wind is whistling through the creaks of the house; outside feels warm and smells like rain. I’ve got some work to finish, so instead of my normal Friday night glass of red or bubbly, I’ve opted for an iced oat milk vanilla and lavender latte from the gas station. For dinner, I grabbed some pasta from my favorite hole-in-the-wall Italian spot right up the street. 

My current fixation is the British monarchy and I’ve been super invested into period pieces. I have settled for The Crown as my background noise for the evening. I’ve got my fuzzy socks, iced coffee and favorite sweats on as I attempt to drown the thunder and lightning with the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. 

This is my Friday night as a single, thirty-something-year-old woman. Not mad at it.

My weekdays run together and are pretty monotonous. One would even say boring? My routine is simple: wake up, do farm chores, sit at my desk and run my business. During the day I’m usually stuck at my desk for hours at a time, getting lost in the day-to-day hullabaloo of running a business. Sometimes it’s nice on a Friday night to just do nothing and decompress from the week. I’m okay with being boring because life honestly moves too fast for me.

I scroll through my Twitter feed and come across this tweet:

It stopped me in my tracks and made me think.

Do you feel like a woman? Or do you feel like a girl?

I vividly remember having an anxiety attack around my 29th birthday. There was so much fear and trepidation in turning thirty. There was a weight and heaviness to it. A certain finality which felt like this is it, I should have my shit together by now. I felt like my thirties were my official welcome party into womanhood.

But what is “womanhood?” What defines it?

I turn 32 in August. My mama had all three of her children and a husband by my current age. Younger me thought becoming a “woman” meant becoming a wife and a mother, but because I’m not either of those things, neither can be used to define who or where I am in my life. So how can I define womanhood if the two historical, pivotal pieces that I have been taught compose womanhood are devoid in my life?

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I’ll admit that there is a certain piece of womanhood that feels unnatural to me, like something’s missing. When I look in the mirror, I see a woman. Physically, my breasts have a natural sag, my hips have a natural sway, my skin is naturally soft. There’s a natural femininity that seeps from my pores. Mentally and spiritually though? I had to ask myself: do I feel like a woman? Or do I feel like a girl?

Most days, I feel like a girl who is cosplaying a woman. I have the house, the land, the white picket fence, the career. The things that we were taught as young girls to strive towards. But I don’t have the children, the husband and the perfectly planned future together. I don’t have my meals planned for the next week, summer activities for the kids, or date nights with my husband. It’s just me, my dog, my business and my farm right now. On one hand, I have no issues with that and have come to terms that womanhood for me in my thirties is non-traditional and veers from the norm of what I was taught that a thirty-something-year-old woman should look and feel like. 

One response to the original tweet sums up my feelings perfectly:

I’m learning to not feel guilt or shame around getting lost and feeling uncomfortable in my womanhood. I’m accepting that womanhood is not the stereotypical story that I’ve been fed all my life. It’s not just about being barefoot, married and pregnant.

Womanhood is about learning how to be present in your body, loving the body and vessel you’ve been given, unlearning the ways in which social media and the world teaches us how to be and becoming who we’re destined to be. It’s about nurturing that inner child, that precious little girl in you who may have needed more love, reassurance, security and care. It’s becoming comfortable in your own skin, in your own mind and thoughts. Womanhood is not about accolades, life milestones or accomplishments.

There is no right or wrong way to be a woman. There is no guidebook or rules to this shit. As women living in a totally different era than our parents and their parents, it is up to us to define what womanhood looks like for us. Women are enrolling in college and graduating at higher rates than ever (Forbes). Women are starting and running businesses faster than ever (Zippia). There are no limits to who or what we can be, that’s up to us.

Womanhood is the hardest hood to live in and navigate. It is nuanced, layered and complicated.  Navigating womanhood is a continual metamorphosis. 

You change from day to day, year to year. No one moment is like the next.

Womanhood, specifically black womanhood, is learning to be confident in taking up space, no matter how that looks for you. Whether you’re a mother, a wife, or simply just a single, thirty-something watching The Crown on a Friday night. 

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FOR YOUR EARS:

Tyler, The Creator is a creative genius. Check his episode on Rap Caviar.

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