There she is

I listened to a podcast last month in which the host and his guest were discussing being your truest self and how to find a place of liberated peace and joy from which that true you can emerge. They spoke of being able to say, “There she is,” when in this place of self-recognition. I’ve spent the last month discussing this with some girlfriends and seeking to find these moments for myself. It’s made me aware of what it is in life that brings me to my truest place of “there she is,” and the joy that lies within my core. It’s genuine laughter with my kids when I’m not distracted by mundane responsibilities of housework. It’s a night out with my husband when we can eat a full meal while it’s still hot without having to take turns walking a bored and busy two year old outside of the restaurant so he doesn’t ruin the dining experience for those around us. It’s going out for a run with no planned workout, just me and the road and the growing glow of the sunrise. There have been these moments when I’m in full awareness of myself and my core beliefs and my joy and I can look at this woman I’ve become and see it so clearly: “there she is.”

But, this week? This week it’s been a much harder task to say that. And it’s been a much needed lesson that “there she is” does not have the luxury of residing only in moments of joy and peace.

That woman who lives with the shame of an abusive past and is grappling with how to explain to her children that there is still hope and love in the world: there she is.

The girl who can’t participate in extracurricular activities at school because she has to work as many hours as a teenager is allowed so that she can help her immigrant parents pay the household bills: there she is.

The single mother putting everything she has into a job that will not pay her as much as her male equivalent: there she is.

The women who have recently celebrated the ability to marry one another and are now living in fear of their equal rights being revoked: there she is.

The girl that is any race other than white and any religion other than Christian who has learned to live in the margins of a society that has responded to her with silence (or worse, outright hatred): there she is.

I’ve spent my life living mostly in privilege and, outside of the marginalized treatment that my gender occasionally brings, I haven’t had to be on the receiving end of the hurt that so many around me live with on a daily basis. I am guilty of having turned my head away from the stories of the oppressed, the abused, the “other” because it made me uncomfortable to hear them and left me feeling overwhelmingly helpless. This week has been a call to end the head turning. To lock eyes with the girls and women around me who don’t look like me, believe like me, sound like me and hold their gaze—do not look away.

To the hurting women around me: I want to stand with you. I want to hurt with you. I want to carry the weight of your undeserved burdens with you. I want to say I’m sorry for turning away when it was uncomfortable to hear your stories. I want to see you in your pain and walk with you to your joy. I want all the little girls around us to know that they can live in a world of hope and equality, and be a strong woman of grace and grit and acceptance and love for everyone around her. I want those girls to see an image of the unstoppable woman they aspire to be and know that they can have all of it because they look at us fighting for them and say to themselves, “there she is.”