The Impossible Woman

A few days ago, someone told me, “You are just TOO much. You don’t understand how much you are to deal with.” In that same week, someone else told me, “You have to stop being so sensitive, you need to toughen up.”

Unpopular opinion: being a woman in today's world can, in many ways, feel harder than it did for the women who came before us.

Not because we have fewer rights. We don't.

We inherited privileges countless women fought for: our right to vote, to work, to speak our minds, to own our independence, to choose our own paths. We stand on the shoulders of women who broke down doors so we wouldn't have to. But somewhere along the way, freedom came with a new expectation: to do everything.

To build a career.
To maintain a home.
To nurture relationships.
To stay informed.
To stay ambitious.
To stay beautiful.

Let’s say you’re a woman working a full-time job, and afterwards you get to come home and... relax?

Nope.

The work often continues in quieter forms: the dishes in the sink, the laundry in the basket, the groceries that need buying, the appointments that need scheduling, the emotional labor no one notices, and the endless maintenance of simply existing in a female body.

The workouts.
The skincare.
The hair appointments.
The makeup.
The clothes.
The pressure to look effortless while spending countless hours ensuring that you do. And through all of it, you're somehow expected to remain agreeable.

Don’t be too emotional. Don’t be too loud. Don’t be too ambitious. Don’t be too sensitive. Don’t be too passionate. Don’t be too opinionated. Don’t be too much.

All the while, we've somehow begun treating dependence as a dirty word.

We are praised for being self-sufficient, independent, and capable of doing everything on our own. And while those things are beautiful, somewhere along the way, we’ve started confusing strength with isolation.

The truth is, there is nothing weak about wanting someone to share your life with. There is nothing weak about wanting a hand to hold when the day has been heavy. There is nothing weak about wanting someone to call first when something wonderful happens, or when everything falls apart. We are social creatures, so why are we pretending like we don't need one another?

A woman can build a career, pay her own bills, fix her own problems, and still long for partnership. She can be capable and still crave comfort; Independent and still desire support; Adventurous and still want somewhere safe to rest. Not because she needs saving, but because life was never meant to be carried entirely alone.

Some of the most beautiful moments in life aren't achievements at all. They're shared glances across a room. Inside jokes. Slow mornings. Calling someone after a long day. Reaching for a hand during a difficult time. There is no prize at the end of life for needing no one. And there should be no shame in admitting that being loved, understood, chosen, and accompanied is something most of us deeply desire.

So then, what if "too much" was never the problem?

What if we, as women, have spent generations shrinking ourselves to fit into spaces that were never designed to hold the fullness of who we are?

Maybe your laugh isn't too loud.
Maybe your feelings aren't too big.
Maybe your dreams aren't too delusional.
Maybe your passion isn't too intense.
Maybe your desire for connection isn't neediness.

Maybe you've simply been taught to apologize for your magnitude.

We are allowed to be flawed.

We are allowed to be loud and take up space. We are allowed to be angry. We are allowed to be passionate. We are allowed to be messy. We are allowed to be complicated. We are allowed to be disliked. We are allowed to disappoint people. We are allowed to need people. We are allowed to love deeply. We are allowed to want companionship.

There is a peculiar contradiction in being a woman: the world teaches you to develop thick skin before it teaches you how to love yourself. It asks you to become resilient, cautious, independent, and unshakable. It hands you armor and calls it survival.

Yet beneath all that armor remains the harder task:

To stay soft. Not fragile, soft. The difference between the two is fragility breaks under pressure. Softness survives it.

Maybe the goal was never to become untouchable. Maybe the goal was never to need no one, feel nothing, ask for nothing, and carry everything alone. Maybe true strength was never found in how much of yourself you could suppress, but in how much of yourself you could allow to exist. Not because women are fragile, but because we have always been brave enough to feel what others spend their lives trying to outrun.

And perhaps the most radical thing a woman can do is stop treating her femininity like something that needs to be justified, because femininity was never meant to be a weakness to overcome.

It is an art form.

A force of nature.

And maybe the most beautiful part of becoming a woman is realizing that you do not need to choose between being soft and being strong.

You can be both.

You always were.

The magic was never in becoming less of yourself.

The magic was in finally having the courage to be all of it.

Sincerely,

S. x