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To be a woman is to live a thousand lives and learn from a thousand versions of yourself. I see femininity as the power to be outspoken, to have your own desires, to uplift other women and to feel immense strength within that. We are born this way, as natural leaders, women are born resilient and full of hope. From the innocent dreams of becoming a doctor as a child, to being the first one to raise your hand when a teacher asks for ‘strong boys’ to help with a task at school and offering help to classmates regardless of how busy we were. As we get older, we  are constantly fed the narrative of being less than, having certain roles and aiming lower than our male peers. Sometimes the weight of societal pressures and standards can wear us down, until we realise, we are not even living the life we would choose.

Women have to work so hard to relearn our power, we find the confidence to no longer bite our tongue around certain people, we cut off men who expect us to sleep with them on the first date instead of reluctantly agreeing to sexual practises that make us feel uncomfortable and even sometimes go no contact with misogynistic family members. I still have many lessons ahead of me. And that’s the beauty of womanhood. We have the privilege to grow our minds, to choose our paths and repeat this process as much as our heart desires. 

My grandmother carried sadness deep within her, my mother caries such regret about what her life could’ve been. I’ve known from an early age; I was not interested in inheriting this cycle. I want freedom, autonomy and a bright future filled with all of my hopes and dreams. It’s extremely easy to succumb to the pressure of being a woman. I used to believe that love was letting someone mould you into the person that suits them. I spent my most formative years changing my path, beliefs, and interests to please those around me, especially boyfriends.

 I used to see that as devotion and strength, leaving parts of myself behind to be who someone else wanted me to be. And every time a man made me fall down, it was a woman who caught me. A friend picking me up after a breakup, my mum telling me to choose myself, my sister giving me a shoulder to cry on. Girlhood is one of the most valuable things we have in this life. I know that anytime something happens, something I cannot deal with on my own, a woman in my life will be there to support me through it.

I have never doubted my trust in girlhood; I’ve always had an incredible support system of amazing women around me but my faith in girlhood was really solidified when I was 18 years old and building up the courage to leave my abuser. I had stayed silent about the events of this relationship for two years, I just knew I couldn’t tell anyone the truth, they’d expect me to leave him. I couldn’t just look at my friends and say ‘my boyfriend raped me but I’m not ready to leave him yet’ because I knew I was supposed to leave him, but telling the truth would only make it real.

After growing up an unhappy home, I spent my teenage years searching for love and validation, eventually settling for what I thought I deserved. After a holiday full of arguments and assault, I’d finally had enough of the torture and worked up the courage to tell my friends the truth about my relationship. I will forever be grateful for the women I had around me at that time, for supporting me with nothing but love and compassion. 

I spent the next few months with my bags secretly packed, working up the courage to leave him but what I didn’t know was that the next six months would be filled with darkness and depression. I spent weeks wondering what I had done to deserve such atrocities, whether I was on the receiving end of my father’s karma and if maybe I had actually made the whole thing up. Every piece of the girl I once was had been taken from me, my sparkle, my personality, my hope. The women in my life were the ones to rebuild me, brick by brick, and not just the old me but a newer, stronger version of myself. My friend Lily travelled all the way from London to see me and support me, my friend Babette gifted me a journal with poems to get me through, and my friend Presley showed up for me every single day making sure i was never alone. Even in the darkest depths of my depression, my sweet mother wrote me supportive notes and gave me encouraging tasks to try and get me out of bed. These are the women who saved me, supported me through every trying time with love and selflessness. 

I remember picking up a book called “How to heal a broken heart” during this time, something the author Rosie Green discussed was the grenade moment. The moment the grenade explodes and separates your old life from your new one. We will forever have that divide, life as we know it has been detached and what lies on the other side is entirely unknown and unthinkable. I used to see this as my life before and after abuse. The previous version of myself a young, innocent, outgoing girl and the new version of myself who had been broken down, demoralised and taken away.  I spent a lot of time grieving my old self and my old life, I was terrified of life on the other side, feeling that the undamaged version of myself was lost in time, never to be seen again. But the beauty of the grenade moment is that it does happen again.

 After years of healing, learning, unlearning and strength, at some point the explosion occurs again, but now split between your broken self and healed self. And this new healed version can’t imagine living through that pain, she has her sparkle back, she loves herself and she isn’t afraid to speak up. Now I get to see the grenade moment as the split between my lost self and my found self, and life on the other side isn’t so terrifying after all. It’s actually full of promise, excitement, friendship and new experiences. While I will always have that broken girl in my heart, I am proud to say I am no longer living my life as her but get to live my life for her.