It's taken me a couple of decades, but I've finally figured out the mean girls in middle and high school. I used to think that they found joy in tormenting me--that it made them feel big every time they made me feel small.
And maybe that was part of it, but now that I am all grown-up and have experienced what healthy friendships look and feel like--I'm realizing that a big part of what caused those girls to bully me, was that we girls have always been conditioned to see other girls as competitors if we don't first see them as companions. I didn't fit into their mold of acceptable anything. I was skinny and awkward and I laughed way too loud. And since I wasn't deemed worthy of companionship, I was shipped to the outer banks of competition. It was the proverbial GAME ON. Anything I did remotely well was seen as another reason for an eye roll or sneer. Which in turn made me feel as though there was something inherently and incredibly wrong with my very self.
When I read this post from one of my favorite authors, this line especially stuck out: "We talked about all the messages girls get about staying small and quiet and competitive and how that’s all horse shit meant to keep girls weak and separate from each other, so we can’t join forces and lead." After I read the piece, it was like years of what had been swirling out of focus in my heart came into crystal clear view. Girls, who turn into teens, who turn into women-- live and breath and move in a world which speaks this falsity into their hearts from a very young age:
You lack.
If that girl is nice, it means you lack.
If that girl is smart, it means you lack.
If that girl is athletic, it mean you lack.
If that girl is organized, it means you lack.
If that girl is pretty, it means you lack.
We are trained to see another girl's successes as our deficits. If another woman is a great mom, we are trained to immediately see the gaping holes in our own job as a mom. If another woman gets a job promotion, we wonder what she has that makes it easy for the boss to pass us over. Instead of encouraging the gifts and talents we see in each other, we spend money, time and way too much energy trying to compete with the perfect life/personality/looks/job we think these other women enjoy.
But I am learning another way. We women belong to a sacred sisterhood. I'm realizing that even though I have an amazing husband who is my best friend in the whole world, he will never get me the way a woman can because women are uniquely--well...womanly. We women are instinctively nurturers and problem solvers, we are listeners and huggers and healers. And I am learning that having another woman or a group of women who cheer me on and raise me up is how it is supposed to be. We are supposed to want each other to feel happy, healthy and complete inside our own lives, our own bodies and our own hearts. We are supposed to be a safe place for other women to be broken, but also a safe place for them to fly.
We women are individual parts of one big beautiful tapestry. A tapestry that is dying and fraying because we are trying to replicate other pieces that are meant to be unique and lovely all on their own.
Those middle school girls who wrecked me so long ago started me down a path where I learned to put my guard up quickly. They taught me that girls could only be petty and conniving. They taught me it was never safe to be vulnerable or honest with another girl because at some point they would use all my feelings and thoughts against me. I'm trying to undo 25 years of wrong thinking. And it begins with how I see my sisters. It is SO HARD not to buy into this notion that another person's strengths are my weaknesses, but I am working on it. I want to dig deep and help change this culture that says one woman's plus is another woman's minus. I want to teach my daughters to be thankful for the their own gifts and talents, but also the gifts and talents of other girls.
I am so thankful for the women in my life--old and new, near and far, in the flesh, and online (as in communities such as Blessed is She) who have helped me love myself and trust the goodness and strength that exists inside the feminine genius.
Here's hoping and praying that you feel loved just as you are, sister. Love,
Alissa
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