International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day is a day of celebration right?!.  Of all the successful, powerful and loving women that shape our society and our lives.  

However, sometimes there is a very different, personal and brutal side of what it means to be a woman in today’s world.   

This life changing year of 2020 started with me not celebrating as such, but by being balls-deep in all kinds of therapy.   

In today’s world women carry and embody all of the roles, the sexy and funny yet supportive and adoring partner or wife, the caring and nurturing mother, the ride or die friend, the business owner or career woman, the home maker and home keeper.  

Naturally and intrinsically we fulfil all these roles and actively want to be all of these things to all of these people, just because.  This isn’t a story that it’s all too much pressure for us to bear or a pitiful cry that it’s all not fair.  Far from it. 

The modern women IS a woman of many facets and why shouldn’t we be, why should we hold ourselves back on any of our wants or desires or dare to dream.  Why shouldn’t we be celebrated for being whole and complete and for wanting and creating a rich and fulfilling life for us and all of those around us.  We shouldn’t have to sacrifice parts of ourselves just to be accepted and celebrated.  And maybe now we are starting to recognise and demand just this. 

We as women give so much support and encouragement to those that we know and love, where we only want the very best for them and for them to be happy.  The twist on this is that now women are having to demand to receive this unequivocal love and support in return.  Reciprocity is the word of 2020 people.  

So many loving and kind, generous and powerful women I know are facing life’s challenges of being a Woman in today’s world, alone.  Without the acceptance, love and support from a partner as our backbone.  It is all that’s needed and desired to enable these women to be everything that they possibly want and can be. The backbone that we so effortlessly provide to others. 

The beginning of the end of everything I knew and loved came in November.  An abrupt, brutal and violent end to a very important relationship, family and home-life.  Followed seamlessly by a downturn in my business, followed even more timely by a health condition requiring a 4 month chemotherapy type treatment.  All neatly delivered with a big fat bow a few weeks before Christmas. 

With alarming pace, everything I had worked so hard to build in my life, the love, the family, the home and the business.  All gone, taken right out of my hands.  Like a dominos stack that someone else had flicked, and all I could do was watch. 

This darkest and most brutal time of my life left me with a shattered heart whilst watching my own son’s heart break, present enough to be painfully aware of the lasting impact this may have on his view of both love and relationships.  My fear and financial concerns about maintaining the family home and the debilitating achy fatigue from the treatment of a pre-cancerous condition. A stage 1 situation in old money. As a modern woman in today’s world, this was faced alone.   

I raised my hand above the parapet 6 weeks after it all came crashing down.  6 weeks was how long it took before I could utter the words from my lips, too painful it was to breathe life into the reality I now faced. My domino stack, it’s gone.  For the first time in my life a teary, washed out, thin and helpless me raised a hand to my neighbours and pitifully whispered “help …..I’m not doing ok”.  

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And who were the first responders in this emergency situation?.  Who were the neighbours who came swooping in? well, the women of course. The mothers themselves, those women facing health issues of their own, the gaggle of little women who intrinsically nurture, care and can and will provide.  The offers of and childcare and a distraction for my wee man, the “have you eaten?”, the “come around for coffee”, the “we are just checking on you neighbours”.  

Then came the friends. Siren’s blaring, food bringing, hug bearing to pick me up off the floor and wipe away my tears.  The friends who have accompanied me to the hospital, to speak to the doctors when I cried too hard with fear to hold a conversation.  The friends who held me when the heartbreak and rejection smashed through the core of my very soul.  My friends far and wide with the “I’m just checking on you” text’s and phone-calls.  And whom are those friends? the women of course, the childless and the mothers, the business women and the student’s, the new and the old but always the women. 

Sometimes beautiful, loving and amazing women are left with nothing but the broken pieces of shattered lives, holding desperately onto homes, families and children, businesses and the shadows of former selves.

Women do intrinsically assume responsibility for many parts of the jigsaw of life and are finding that the burdens that we carry can sometimes, just sometimes, be too heavy for one pair of shoulders.

These ordinary and yet so very extraordinary women that are neighbours, friends and colleagues are the women we will celebrate on International Women’s Day.  All of you.  Those that swoop in during tough times, those that nurture and care, those that will catch you every step of the way, and those that only want to see you shine and smile again.  

Here now in March, things are looking brighter.  My treatment is going well and business is picking up again, the wheel of fortune will always turn again in your favour if you hold on through the dark just long enough.  2020 is a year of healing, healing hearts, healing bodies and healing minds, and now, now I do know is that all I have to do is raise a hand and they, the women will come.

Thank you my loves xx