Name-Calling

As a kid and then a teenager, I was quite the young feminist (at least, in my own mind). I firmly believed that women who stayed at home were either lazy or untalented. I believed that if you didn't have a good career, you were obviously a defective human being. I believed that as long as I made a name for myself in the corporate realm, the husband and kids would be a nice addition, but I'd be fine on my own if that never worked out.

Recently, though, I have started to change my feelings and attitudes about who I am and who I am okay with being. Two years ago if I thought I might have to one day become a homemaker, I would probably have ended up questioning who I was as a person and wondering where I'd gone wrong. If I didn't have my career, I would have felt like I was a worthless person contributing nothing to the world. But today, I feel like who I am stays the same regardless of my job description.

I want to be a wife and a mother. I want to be a crazy cat lady (too bad Eric is allergic or that dream would have already been realized). I want to be very good at my job. I want to be seen as a smart, resourceful woman. I want to be seen as a sexy woman. I want to be a tough tomboy. I want to be fit and healthy, and I want to sit around and be lazy. I want my career to be important and something that I'm proud of, and I want to know that my family is my priority.

I want to be a lot of things, a lot of best versions of myself. And the thing is, there is no one way to classify all of that into one identity. I have gotten to a place in my life where I am tired of trying to describe my identity in one or two words because, let's face it-- people are more complicated than that. A person's selfhood is ineffable, and to try to articulate who I am would be to immediately leave out a part of myself.

Today I am officially letting go of the ideas I had about what it meant for me to be the person I imagined, and I am taking hold of the fact that I am a complex, unique, and multifaceted woman. I don't mind having a great career, and I don't mind one day being a mother and a wife. As long as it's all my choice, and as long as I can go to sleep at night feeling happy and fulfilled, you can call me whatever you want.

But don't call me "Surely"...