WHAT IS A STRONG WOMAN? | QUEENBEADY

I was called “very strong-willed” the other day. It’s very far away from the view I have of myself to be honest. I just see myself as a panicky, over-thinking, late-twenty year old mess. But then, I got thinking about it. Maybe I actually am quite “strong” – because some of the things I have to put up with, which for the purposes of this blog I will not actually go in to detail, a lot of people probably would have said a big “F U” to, many, many, maaaaaany moons ago. The same person who said I was “strong-willed” I actually stood up for the other day in a slightly heated discussion. One where it felt like they were getting the blame for something that in all it’s entirety was not their fault. So yes, I sat back and thought deeply (yeah ‘cos I am deep & shit!) and came to conclusion that actually yes, maybe I am.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I feel like two different people. The one that talks inside my head and the one I actually present myself as, in it’s physicality. I’m rather aloof, I’m loud and probably conveniently embarrassing to those who surround me. My mouth just spurts things that sometimes I can’t control and we all have a laugh about it. So I can understand that people see me as a confident & brave person. However, that’s me when I’m feeling nervous about a situation, there’s the voice in my head that constantly questions and doubts myself and other peoples, which makes me this bumbling joker trying to distract those thoughts.

I realise, none of us really have our shit fully together do we? Let’s face it. And if someone says they do, they are lying. You heard it here first. Sometimes I feel like I’m breezing through life like a little bad-ass futhermukka. Winning new and big client’s at work, acing it on a blog post whilst working with new brands or even just pressing “buy” on my ever growing ASOS basket because I got a cheeky bonus. Then other times I feel like I have lost utter control over everything, my insecurities start to rear their ugly heads from time to time.

Sometimes it’s just waking up to your first alarm, putting your clothes on & doing your hair, heading off to work, coming home to cook tea, do the washing, walk the dog, write a blog post and everything else that happens in between that warrants a “yes, I’ve boshed today.” It’s a funny feeling. I constantly question what I have done that makes me strong or even just a “good” person that day (or, ever.) I always seem to think the worst. However, I know really, deep down that I do in fact, have most of my shit together. Despite having a father, that was just a sperm donor in my eyes, to walk away from me at birth, to then re-enter my life 14 years later and then say a big sorry-ass goodbye again is pretty hard going for an impressionable teen. In fact, it still hurts no matter what way I look at but then I come to realise that I have a wonderful step-father who in my eyes is my Dad and I’m extremely close to my Grandad who brought me up for the first 5 years of my life with my Mum & Nana, too.

I think if you look at my closesly, despite a little twinkle in my eye you can see my demons, the things that let me down but it’s how I try not to let it define me as a person, how I keep plodding along and then every so often having a massive blow out where I cry uncontrollably. Don’t forget, that it is so normal to require that every now and then. I had a mind-blowing conversation with someone the other which made me make a few deep statements over on Twitter. I realise I write my blog so people like me, so people don’t want to leave me. It’s not for a “oh-look-at-me-I-wanna-be-adored” kinda way, it’s for the acceptance of me, as a person that I so regularly never found in my real father, to the people at school and to those I have worked with that don’t get me (and subsequently made me feel terrible about myself) Going through all of this really has made me tough. But then deep, deep inside I am still quite fragile and need that love or respect from others and I finally feel that within the blogging community I have found that.

I’m starting to realise I am going to have a few slip ups from time to time but I AM a strong woman who will get through it. I hope you can start to believe that about yourself too because a strong woman comes in all shapes and sizes, it’s the A&E nurses that work all hours and come home to have to look after her family because she’s a single parent, to the Olympian who is chasing their dreams of winning gold at the Olympics, to women who keep the house spic and span so that everyone has a nice house to live in. It’s the girls on the street, running in fear who finally seek help with authorities that are strong. And those women who dominate the boardroom in front of twenty men (take that sexism!) In short, we are all suffering our own battles and each time we get knocked down and rebuild ourselves back up we get that little bit stronger. It might take days, weeks, months, heck even years to be truly happy with what we have put out there during our life but with time, it does get easier.

Bee xxx