I Am Tired of Being a Woman.

I turn in my woman card...

Is there a woman card? Or only a man card? It is a man's world after all.  No matter the feminism, the marches in big cities, the female CFO, the "token" women on the board of directors, Ivanka Trump, Ashley Judd … it is a man's world.  Still.  It remains a man's world.  

I am a 43 year old female.  I was born in 1976.  I grew up in the 80’s when Claire Huxtable was a lawyer and Different Strokes was a house full of multi-cultural children raised by a man.  I completely related to and felt in my soul in the show, My Two Dads, because I had and still have two dads – one hero, one loser, but still, there are two.  Through everything, it is still a man’s world… at least in this house.

I am a mother.  I have two sons.  One is 16 and the other is 13.  They are similar and yet they are quite different.  One is a little less “try hard”, gets high A’s and that comes natural.  He questions the need for authority, he, in fact, questions everything.  Yet, we have hung the sun and the moon on this child, as you do with your first born - and most times, he rises to the occasion.  My second son works hard, does his homework as soon as he gets home, is compassionate, empathetic, sympathetic and is everything we raised his brother to be – oddly enough, it shows up in the second born son.  Though very different, they are everything to me.  I was born to be their mother.  It is my greatest passion, my calling, my chosen career. 

I am a wife.  I have been married to love of my life for 19 years this Monday.  Marriage is a challenge.  It is hard.  No, it is HARD.  It is why I am still here.  I apparently love and live by a challenge.  

Unlike my first born beautiful boy, I am a try hard.  For those not related at all to Generation Y, a “try hard” means I am “sweaty”, I “flex”, I “try hard” to do the right thing, all of the time. In fact, one of my former bosses said once in a recommendation letter – and I quote, “Candace does the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing.”  To some that would be weak, to me, it meant everything.  

I indeed try hard, for everyone.  And I am worn out.

I am tired of being a woman.  I am tired of being put together.  I am tired of letting everything roll off my back.  I am tired of being lonely.  Do you know how lonely it is to be mother to two teenage sons?  As babies and toddlers, they need you for everything - then they need you to play with them, and you are worn slap out in those early years - and then they grow, enter middle school and suddenly you bore them - and now you'd give anything for an entire sentence and eye contact, to play, to swing, to read books like you used to.  And where is your husband?  Cutting the grass - because in 2019 the grass gets cut three times a week.  It is a lonely place.

I am tired of being a woman.  No, I do not admire Caitlyn Jenner.  That is a lot of work.  I just want to be respected, admired.  I want to have the same pull as a man.  I have direction, purpose, yet still I wear the smile of a people pleaser (typical woman),  along with an underwire bra, heels and quite often a face fit for the stage and tv.  I am tired of being pleasing.  I am tired of being dismissed.  I am tired of being a woman… I am tired. 

Can anyone out there relate?  Sure, we make it look so perfect on Facebook, but not intentionally, because WHO really takes pics of the cat shit on the floor and posts them on a heinous Monday morning?  Yet this is the reality.  We mothers, we wives, we are tired, we are worn out, we are taken for granted and we are lonely.  Own it.  Question it, defy it, change it.  Find yourself.  Anyone with me? 

End of rant.