A friend tagged me in this one, and I loved it! What hit the hardest? I have the freedom and opportunity to write for “all the women in history who weren’t allowed to write”.
And, Y’all, there are women on earth TODAY who aren’t allowed to write.
I’ll do my best, Precious Women, who had no voice. I’ll do my best, Beautiful Girls, who wish they could speak. I’ll be as authentic as possible, share and help, bring joy and offer hope.
I can learn and grow and love. I can be ambitious and do and accomplish things. I can describe and show and tell. I can pray and be the light.
Oh, Sweet Women Friends, how can we belittle each other? How can we compete? How can we create triangles and weave gossipy webs?
How can we disrespect our bodies and let our minds go to waste? How can we be too busy fueling our egos instead of nurturing our souls?
How can we expect men, a doctor, the government to respect us when we struggle with loving ourselves?
How can we be heard if we constantly run around shrieking in hyperbole rather than speaking clearly and cleverly with tempered voices to match the earnestness of our needs?
To those women who had (have) no voice, yes, this is a laptop computer. It’s functionality in my approximation, seems frightingly magical to me, too. I have no idea how it works. And yep, I’m in what could easily pass as pajamas, but don’t worry, I have the decency and dignity not to go out in public like this (mostly).
Know that we, like you, appreciate words and how beautifully the can be strung together like pearls. Know that we, too, love the origin of language, a well as the evolution and future of it. We value books and libraries and free speech. We know you were (are) passionate about being heard.
The world is loaded with chicks like me who fiddle with writing, try hard to improve, and have big dreams of sharing our voices across borders. I’m so sorry some of you never could, and I’m so hopeful that if you can’t now one day you WILL have the ability to speak out loud and in print.
Amanda Herring, Writer 