Always the Right Amount
How often are we told to be positive? Write only the positive. Speak only the positive. BE only positive.
We are told not to be fully who we are.
We are too much.
Too spirited.
Too honest.
Too masculine in our desire to be heard, to be actualized.
We demand too much. We want too much. We care too much.
We’re told almost everything about us is “just too much.”
This “too-muchness” is met with silence, disapproval, an unwillingness to engage.
Why is totality so uncomfortable?
Wanting our totality to be appreciated, to be considered the right amount of “us-ness” is appropriate; it’s permissible; it is welcome, even.
It is not just men desiring this “smallness,” women have been desiring this of other women also: women condemning other women for wanting more, for being more.
This complicity can stop here. It is unnecessary.
The corridor for authenticity no longer needs to be so narrow.
Day-to-day communicating never needs to feel Stepford. It never needs to be Stepford.
We are more than what we offer. We are more than what we provide.
Our value is not transactional.
When we, women, get comfortable with ourselves, our world will follow.
It has to.
We are its example.