So here’s the thing, I almost forgot this and when I was reminded, I teared up a little.
Friday night, I sat in the tub thinking about this blog and what type of stories I wanted to tell. When people ask me what I write about, I normally say my life and women’s issues. I truly believe that my story is very similar to other women’s story, but we are not talking about it.
We are not sharing how it feels to take on everything.
The burn out and the joys.
We are not sharing our testimonies when it comes to our lost identities.
We are not sharing stories of our strengths and our weaknesses.
And we are not sharing our goals or our fears. We do it all alone and it’s hard that way.
As I sat there, I thought about how I felt when I was unemployed. Yeah, I was keeping the house clean and ensuring we had hot meals and even desserts every night, but I felt useless. I was always in the same situation and I couldn’t find a job to save my life and that frustrated me.
Every day, I watched the man I love head to work in order to provide for us and I admired that. And I envied it too. He motivated me and inspired me and I wanted to get on his level, so to speak, and because of it, I stressed myself out way more than I should have. To be honest, I just didn’t want to be the loser in the relationship.
When he came home from a friend’s birthday gathering, I told him what I had been thinking about. I told him that I felt like women’s issues is what I am supposed to write about. I told him about that “loser” thing and he completely disagreed with the way that I viewed it.
While I understood his point that when you are in a relationship, your significant other should help you when you need it, I also had to realize that he has never been unemployed for an extended period. He wouldn’t understand what that feels like and when I told him that, he motioned his head as if saying “yeah, I guess.”
I told him that there is such a difference when I tell people what he does and what I do. Then I asked what he says when people ask him about me and he said “I tell them you are a journalist.” And then the floodgates opened and I am not going to lie, they are trying to open more as I write this.
The thing is, I wasn’t sad when I thought about the “loser” thing. I was simply acknowledging how I felt knowing other women have to feel the same way. I was actually cool, but I had forgotten that I what I get paid for does not define me. Or, it doesn’t have to. It’s a temporary situation that is propelling me to work towards my dream everyday and that feels good.
I forgot that I am who I say I am.
From here on out, I choose to define myself as a writer. It’s not just what I do, it’s what I have always done. It’s who I am.
When I couldn’t express myself to my parents when I was younger, I wrote to them.
When I was trying to figure out my feelings with boys, I wrote poetry about it.
And now that I am trying to redefine myself, I am just sticking to the basics.
