You cannot manufacture womanhood.

When things happen in the world, I pay close attention. I take time to consume both sides and I seek solitude while I digest the emotions that went into the argument. Coming to my OWN conclusions about where I stand has always been important to me. But moving around so much during my childhood, I was a people watcher, and going to three different high schools I had to learn to make friends quickly…and that meant keeping my opposing opinions to myself, blending in, and going with the flow.

The current social climate has inspired me to start a new project… a project about my experience of womanhood.

For the majority of my childhood I sacrificed my self-image in the name of belonging.

I sat with constant anxiety during school, wondering who I would sit with at lunch and if I would be invited into friend circles that weekend.

This is just one aspect of womanhood that cannot be manufactured. The passage from girlhood to womanhood. There is a little girl that lives inside each natural born woman holding the trials she faced as a girl and all her reflections on those lessons…an inner guidance system of the values she carries with herself today. A woman is not just pretty dresses, makeup, and Instagram pics. She is a story. She is the constant desire to be good enough, to contribute to her family and community, while also being pretty and a standup role model for her peers… the feeling of friendship, envy, and competition all at once and usually about the same person. She is a healer. She is selfish and compassionate at the same time. She is a creator while also having the desire to serve. She gives every polarity of herself to everything she does all at the same time.

As little girls, we learned to hold all of these emotions and experiences all at once, while also striving for boldness and grace. Some of us held these emotions better than others but essentially it was the same for all of us. We learned to love & envy at the same time. We learned to be upset & forgive at the same time. We learned to hold ourselves and to hold others … all.. at … the … same … time.

Women are the calm & the chaos…all at once.

Women are magic.

Magic cannot be manufactured. Magic is born.