You may be successfully running a business, nurturing a beautiful family with a loving partner and kids you can’t stop talking about. You may be one of those highly-driven, practical girls who has gotten everything right or you may be the girl who was smart enough not to make the same mistakes twice. Maybe you are all of the above. It is a matter of immense pride for any girl to have you in her life as an acquaintance, a mother, a best friend, a sister, a boss, a mentor or even as a worthy adversary.
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But when you come across the likes of me, girls who wear their heart on their sleeves, girls who are childlike (not childish), girls who have made the same mistakes more than once, girls who are trying to figure things out…‘be kind’ to us. Because more than ever, now is the time for you and me to come together. Just like you, we don’t like it when we are subjected to an endless monologue about one’s achievements. Just like you, we don’t like to be patronized. Like you, we get self-conscious when we are laughed at for being ourselves. We are all strong women, but that doesn’t mean ridicule and group bullying don’t affect our confidence. What hurts you hurts us too. We probably don’t have the ability or tact to handle uncomfortable comments and situations. We probably think it’s better to keep mum or have we been defensive; have our outbursts made you uncomfortable? Please let it go, because when we rerun the incident in our heads, just like you, we feel bad about it too. It is wonderful to see you carry your success with dignity, to watch you doing things right, making lemonade out of the lemons dropped in your life’s orchard. Do continue to exercise your good fortune. Share your learnings, strategies and understandings to create a pool of empowered girls.
The likes of me, due to years of conditioning, might not get what you are saying or might not be able to put it into practice, or we might fail at the first couple of attempts; try not to judge us, write us off or discount our being. Trust me when I say ‘we do listen.’ You and the likes of me are just wired differently and dance to different tunes. Our playlist of success may be entirely different, but that is not a good or bad thing, it just is what it is, right?
Our journey, yours and mine, is not about going from being a girl to being a woman. It is not about going from being single to married or from married to single or from divorced to being married again. It is not about being a mother or being childless, being a sinner or a saint. Our journey is not about climbing up or tripping down the corporate ladder. Our journey is not black or white, like everything else in life it is a rainbow of things. Our journey is about greater meanings. Things that will leave a legacy. Things that will give birth to a generation of girls who will pass on the goodness that you and I have sowed.
Our journey is not black or white, like everything else in life it is a rainbow of things.
Let’s be the ‘let live' kind. Let’s be the kind, that’s kind. Your story is truly different from the likes of mine — I respect it and I thank you for doing the same in return. Let’s coexist and not let people pit us against each other. My life cannot be yours and yours cannot be mine, but we can be in each other’s lives and make it divine.
I have one such girl in my life. She is my soul’s best friend. Not because we are the same, but because we are two different people sharing the same space, and that space is this beautiful world we live in. If you have one or several girls in your life who make your soul happy, then try being that for someone else. You never know who needs it. Actually I do know who needs it — WE ALL DO. Wouldn’t you agree?
Smitha is an Advertising copywriter by profession. Having run a successful food blog called ‘Foodishly In Love’ in the Middle East, she has relocated to Los Angeles, California to pursue a Degree in Digital Marketing at UCLA. Today her writings are inspired by the lessons learnt while riding the highs and battling the lows. Everytime she sets pen to paper she aims to create a space where her readers feel understood… assuring them that they are being heard and not judged.
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