“after all those years as a woman hearing ‘not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,’ almost overnight i woke up one morning and thought, ‘i’m enough.'” (anna quindlen)

i’m pretty certain that the hibiscus does not stop to ponder if it is ‘enough’. it just buds and blooms and shows up in the world in a big, big way.

i’m also pretty certain that – were the hibiscus to offer advice to women everywhere – it would advise us all to – likewise – just bud and bloom and show up in the world in a big, big way. it would encourage us to not ponder anything – particularly whether or not we were ‘enough’, likely whether-or-not anything at all.

i had a dream last night – the part that i remember is that i had something to say…and in my dream i contacted a younger woman to ask her to say it – because somehow, in my dream, i had passed the point of being heard – my age had made my words irrelevant, no longer of value, my voice weightless.

even in my dream i knew this was wrong and when i woke I wondered why i was dreaming this – though there are so many dots connecting this i am foolish to even wonder.

i watched a video where the interviewer asked the interviewee about when this country was great. the man – exquisitely dressed in gq magazine garb – replied with a year in the early 1900s, before world war one, in 1913. the year of the women’s suffrage parade – among many other things – the interviewer pressed, “oh, so before women could vote?” to which the fabulously-dressed-interviewee replied, “right!”

what the ever-lovin’ hell is that?

watching the dismantling of women’s rights in this country is exhausting. listening to pompous suit-wearing gluttonous testosterone-focused men tout the value of men and the devaluing of women is utterly disgusting. witnessing men strip women of the right to make decisions about their own health and well-being sickens me. sexually exploiting girls and women, stonewalling all manner of culpability, and perpetuating undeniably dishonest and disrespectful silence is grotesque. and the whole twisted trad-wife kitchen-lizard-birth-control-less-pregnant-my-husband-can-vote-for-me-i’m-good-with-that-and-goodness-let’s-make-sure-we-address-his-erectile-dysfunction-and-bow-to-his-needing-a-sandwich movement makes purple stuff wanna burst out of my head.

i mean – truly – what in the hell is going on?

if this is where this country is full-steam-ahead heading, we are most definitely regressing, backsliding into a retrograde sans stopgaps. this is primitive thinking of the highest nature.

and even the hibiscus knows it.

i woke up a little bit crabby after dreaming that i turned over what i had to say to a younger, thinner, less wrinkly, more ‘relevant’ woman.

and, like anna quindlen, i thought to myself, “the hell with that. i’m enough.”

i have a few things to say here and i’m in full bloom.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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