girl talk

so I'm gonna rant. you don't want to hear it, then go read some other blog.

here I freaking go, again. falling back into an old pattern. every time i think i've got it beat, i find out i've got more to learn. today i recognized that I'm being one of the guys again. not guys as in 'people' but guys as in boys. who is it that I'm becoming friends with among the recent grads? all guys. there are some awesome women that I want to hang with...but somehow that is more work, more effort, more risk than hanging out with the guys and just being with them. why is it that being one of the guys is easy for me? more for me to consider, more for me to work on, more to take to therapy.

I have been working on being comfortable with being feminine, too. It really is a constant struggle for me to be strong and feminine at the same time. I was talking to John about this earlier today, and we started ranting about how irritating it is when women act stupid and weak in order to attract men. Somehow being dumb and weak is appealing? Who wants to stay trapped in a tower waiting for the guy to come along and rescue you? Because the fucking patriarchy (our society) says that is what women are supposed to do? If I do get stuck in a tower, I'll climb down my own hair, dammit! I don't need to wait for anyone to save me. I'm saving myself. This doesn't mean that I don't want to have a partner; it doesn't mean that it isn't nice to have someone to share life's struggles with; it doesn't mean that you can't be cared for (or take care of someone). But I'm tired of buying into the idea that women are weaker, that we're not as smart, that we're in any way less than.

I'm tired of feeling like I have to prove myself all the time. To prove that I'm smart enough, strong enough, tough enough. Enough for what? for whom? I want the base assumption that I'm smart and strong and capable, not the other way around. I try to start with that assumption...start with high expectations of people. Not that I expect that everyone will have the same foundational knowledge or physical or emotional capacity as me, but that people will tell me what their limits are, not have me set up limits for them. I want to be met in the world this way, and I'm not. I experience suffering because I want the world to be something other than it is. I experience suffering because I don't accept myself. I experience suffering when I doubt myself, I doubt my own intellect, my own strength, my own capability. I breathe in all this suffering and I breathe out a moment of relaxing with things just as they are.