The 15 Most Important Things We Learn From The Women In Our Lives
There's no way a woman "should" be. The women in our lives teach us that "ideal" exists only on magazine pages and in the minds of those influenced by a relentless society. If you ever need to feel reassured, look around — they show us what "real" looks like, what "happy" looks like, and why it's okay to look like whatever you look like.
How to command respect. In utopia, all beings respect others regardless of sex or gender or orientation or race or ethnicity or arbitrary nonsense. However, we live in reality, where respect is not given as it should be. There's nothing more important than the women who show you that you deserve more, and that getting it is a matter of demanding it.
The greatest friendships you'll ever know are those of sisters who act like best friends and best friends who act like sisters. Their relationships will always be a little deeper, a little more intimate, and a little more hilariously open than anybody else's.
The female role models in your life are just as important as the people who you have relationships with personally. Their work and their lives speak to you for a reason. Figure out why. Learn from this. Realize the theme is usually that they were courageous in the most unlikely circumstances. Revel in that. Emulate it.
You will always be calling your mother. The people who are fortunate enough to have maternal relationships in their lives — by blood or birth or not — know that it doesn't matter how old you are or what you're going through, you'll always call your mom, because she just always knows.
Speaking of: there is no force greater than the anger of a mother* whose daughter has just been scorned, especially if it was by a lover.
*But a best friend post-breakup comes close. The fury that the mention of a name can elicit speaks volumes. But regardless, in the grand scheme of things, someone breaking your heart is infinitesimally small in comparison to the love your best friend will show you while you get through it (say thank you).
How to multi-task. The women in this world carry a heavy burden — they're expected to do it all, do it well, and not sacrifice their appearances in the interim. It's not about how much we take on, it's about how we learn to balance and adjust and cope and draw lines and be true to our word regardless. It's a balancing game that requires grace, but the women in our lives are the ones who show us that it's possible if we want it to be.
Happiness is not necessarily found in a career nor in a relationship and the only reason to pursue either of those things is because you genuinely want to, not because you genuinely don't want to be alone or feel that your self-worth can only be affirmed by external means.
Your grandmother's beauty advice: Pinch your cheeks to give you color, stop a stocking run with clear nail polish, and never be afraid of gray hair or wrinkles — they're character.
Your mother's love advice: Always be with someone "who loves you just a little bit more," never compromise yourself because the person you love asks you to, and the first person to break your heart is the one who deserved to the least.
How to open up, be empathetic, listen and care for someone. Everybody has a woman she should thank for being there for her when times were really difficult. Women have an incredible propensity to care for one another in that way, and it should never go unnoticed or unappreciated.
That being a mom is really not about being the stereotyped woman in high-waisted jeans driving a kid to soccer and more about being the glue that holds a family together and cares for every one of you well into your adult lives. The reality of what it means to raise and care for unruly children and have so much invested in them — predominantly love — is just something we can't seem to understand completely until we do it ourselves.
How to walk in heels, figure out what "contouring" means, curl your hair with a flat iron, and not find it vapid or petty to take interest in appearances every now and again.
Every woman has at least one part of herself that she's insecure about. Every woman has a past, a story, and an experience she can't quite work though on her own. Open up, and watch others do the same. We mistakenly spend too much of our time in a mental competition with one another when it's really a simple matter of realizing we're all battling inner demons at the end of the day, and we're no less worthy of love or acceptance because of them.
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