I would like to revisit a concept that I have been using since starting this blog – that I have somehow been transported to another age/stage of life…a baby woman, a 15-year old, a Pollyanna.  I have used all of these terms to describe how I feel at times – flailing about, being emotionally hormonal, being naive/ignorant/innocent/inexperienced…and so forth.  And it’s very true that I have encountered many new things – some that others go through in younger years of their life – and I’ve had a roller coaster of reactions and buckets of knowledge to acquire.  

There’s a phrase: “nothing’s out of order” which I generally like when I hear it.  It usually is a little calming, though it sometimes strikes me as being very unfair!  The truth is, though, that if some things had happened differently, then everything would be different and there’s no saying better or worse.  

I have spent a lot of time being so harsh about my sense of self – criticizing what I didn’t see earlier, feeling shame that I couldn’t handle my emotions better, even blaming my strengths for covering up my weaknesses – kind of even trying to turn them into weaknesses themselves!  (Eek…that one just came up on me…how’s that for a new lens!!?)

When I’ve encountered places where I feel so young, I haven’t allowed that to be a positive (or normal!) thing at all.  My whole life, I’ve been that person who believes that looking competent and put together was the path to actually being competent.  (It’s a valid style of learning – if you stay open to the learning part – which I feel that I mostly have.)  I’ve come across many counters to that in the past couple years.  Seeing times when showing vulnerability allows people to come closer and respond more.   The classic case of when saying “I don’t know” opens doors to knowing that weren’t there before.  Or where allowing time and space results in better, calmer actions. 

I’m learning that everyone feels young (or the equivalent) at times through their lives or, if they don’t, they don’t grow in places that they could.  That perhaps I should not only expect to have times when I don’t know what to do and am feeling “new,” but to open up to them and look for the opportunity.  Or maybe not even look for opportunity and be all efficient-like, maybe just say “I don’t know” and let it go!!  Perhaps sometimes a “research phase” or a spreadsheet or hours of agonizing conversation actually get in my way!!  

Whoa.  

Now, don’t quote me on this – it’s an unproven theory.  I shall have to research it.

Okay, so that’s the reframing of the young.  Now, let’s talk about the grown-up.  See…I *AM* one.  And, more, I am a grown woman.  I have been a woman for almost 42 years – I should know something about it .  And I have been working with this body for all of those years.  Maybe not always successfully, maybe not always liking it, maybe with it shrouded in fat that then shrouded other pieces of me in turn.  

I am also an “all in” grown woman.  I have rarely shrunk from something that I believed in.  I have lived to my fullest as best as I’ve known how.  Yes, some big and significant layers have opened up on me here.  OOooooo!!!!  You know what that is?!!  In good gamer terms, that’s leveling up!  Holy crap, I just leveled up!  

Whoa.

And now, I am struggling to find my footing.  The struggle is not to get back to being all in, the struggle is BECAUSE I *am* all in.  If I weren’t, I wouldn’t struggle so much and so mightily.  I’m gradually realizing that I know more than it feels like I do.  I can trust myself and I can trust my strengths because they ARE my strengths.  I can be a baby lesbian.  I can be a yellow-belt martial-artist or a beginning rock-climber.  I can be a new, more deeply emotional creature. AND I can be a powerful, all-in, grown woman.

Oh dear…considering the subject matter and titles of my last couple blogs…I’m sorry to say that the upcoming closing line is simply inevitable…

I am woman.  Hear me ROAR!!!