Waupaca Naturals...

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This Woman's Worth

It has finally happened. I'm getting that vacation that I have been dreaming of. Unfortunately the beach of my dreams is a navy blue couch and the margarita a raspberry vitamin C drink. I'm too exhausted to care and too upset not to.

These last few months have been challenging for me. It seems as if every other week brings some new ailment. I tried to function as best as I could. I would take some time off here and there just to regroup then I would start again. This final bout hit so hard that I could no longer pretend that I was okay. Walking across a room seems to take a great deal of effort. Taking care of active children seemed, at times, beyond me. I've come to a place where I must finally relinquish control. I am now faced with plenty of time for thought.

I came to one conclusion pretty quickly. I judge my self worth by how much I do. So now that I am not doing anything, I need to find a way to believe that I still am worth something to someone. This led me to wondering, if I was never able to go back to the way I was before, would people still want to be around me. (I tend to get pretty deep when I have a lot of time to think.)

After the tears subsided, some clarity crept into the picture. I believe that every woman has experienced the feelings I am having the privilege of experiencing right now. Back in the day, when women were treated like equals and even looked to for important answers, a woman's worth was evident if she did something or not. Well, that day was long ago and through the ages much twisting has occurred until we have found ourselves here. Here being almost there but not quite. There being where men and women are equals without proof of feats.

So here we sit, trying to prove that we are worthy of being proclaimed as equals again. To prove ourselves, we do amazing acts that involve raising families, working full-time jobs, cleaning houses, throwing parties, heading committees, and attending school or classes to better ourselves. We feel we need to be more than men or even more than the women of yesteryear just to reclaim that place of equality where all of this was not necessary.

I, for one, couldn't do it without coming to a place of sheer exhaustion. I am not Wonder Women or the Bionic Woman or even Spider Man for that matter. Now that I am aware of my humanness, maybe my actions will portray to my daughter an equality that is apparent without acts of greatness. Maybe we are welcoming in a generation of women who will again know equality without having to prove themselves to the world. Therefore, I am a woman who will from this point on live in the beauty of her self worth knowing that if I do "it" or I don't, I will still be worth more than whatever "it" is. Isn't it amazing what a little down time on a navy blue couch can teach you?