Frangible

As a young and semi-liberal lesbian, I've developed quite the luscious list of strong and empowering female role models. They vary from the women I've known intimately to the women I've read about in books to the women who have graced history and when I'm feeling down or lost about something, I usually turn to one of these women to help inspire me to find some kind of footing. Once, when I was having a bad day and I could feel the anxiety attack approaching, I took an hour between classes and read the end of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." I instantaneously felt better. Somehow the naive and spunky nature of this daydream-driven character helped me see that there is value in the crazy, yet extraordinary moments of life and that obsessive organization doesn't make life inherently better, (a lesson I've been forced to learn time and time again.) It's dorky, I know, but the list of fictional characters who have inspired me to be better is more than extensive.

But there is one woman, a real-life woman, who above all, never ceases to be my all-time inspiration. That woman is Maya Angelou. Maya is the woman that inspired me to become a writer; she is an incredibly strong woman and her writing perfectly exemplifies that strength, but it wasn't until I saw Maya in person that she became a true inspiration for me. Maya's writings do have an undeniable and unparalleled strength, but in person Maya is soft and gentle and quite the vulnerable female and I find that soo inspiring. Her soft, quiet nature doesn't muffle her strength, but rather accentuates it. Our society, so often, puts down women that appear vulnerable or frangible (sidenote: frangible is one of my favorite words, I use it all the time; it means "easily breakable," like as if someone was trying to say 'fragile' and 'breakable' at the same time and it came out as 'frangible' and then they just decided that it would be a word and now it is)...anyways...we put down women that appear frangible, because as a society we uphold strength, which is an admirable value to uphold, but not if it teaches women that being vulnerable and being strong are mutually exclusive, because I think that nothing could be further from the truth.

Lately, I've been putting a lot of effort into striving to be imperfect, which, I know, is an odd way to look at it, but in actuality I think that it's a productive way to look at it. Because perfection is so unattainable; when perfection becomes your ultimate goal, I think that you end up sacrificing a lot in order to get it. I have a very aggressive desire to be a strong woman, but sometimes in my quest to be a strong woman, I end up taking on the facade of strength, rather than actualizing strength; which I think makes me weaker, not stronger. Part of being a strong woman is having the strength to offer yourself compassion; the compassion to know that you don't have to be perfect to be great, that you don't have to hide from your history to move forward. And that part of being a strong woman is having the strength to accept yourself exactly as you are, even if that means embracing your frangible-ness.

One of the biggest lessons I've learned as a gay woman is that embracing exactly who are doesn't mean embracing the things that make you feel comfortable, it means offering yourself the compassion to feel whatever it is you're feeling and to go after whatever it is you want, no matter what (or who) it is you want. That's what makes a strong woman; not the facade of strength, but the actualization of strength. That's something I learned from Maya and I think that it's invaluable.