Women...A Woman's Perspective

For those of you who know me, or follow me, you know by now that I am pretty much a no fluff kind of gal.  I try very hard to be true to myself regardless of the situation or circumstance.  While I may put on different hats from time to time (don't we all have to??), I am always still just me, Heather.  Well, as I've discussed recently, things have changed in my life and I'm now forced to put on other hats more than normal.  I do this for the man I love, in support of him and the families he's responsible for.  I do this without reservation and, usually, without complaint.  It's not quite a role I signed up for, but I knew that it was coming when I married him.

I'm going to start with a little insight into me.  I do not like women!  Period!  I despise estrogen related anything.  I run in the other direction when the word "shower" is meant for anything other than cleaning my body each day.  I cringe when invites for girly sit downs, chit chats and otherwise random being togetherness is put out.  I shy away from things like spouses groups and women conferences, and even the old "women only" gyms (of back in the day....do they still have that franchise??).  I hate catty.  I hate snotty.  I hate pretension.  I hate condescension.  There.  I've said it all.


Now, let me explain.  I LOVE my friends.  Each and every one of them.  I could not live my life, even in Paradise, without them.  I treasure them.  I value them.  I respect them.  I admire many of them, and I truly believe they are all in my life for a reason.  I hold them dear to my heart and would walk the ends of the earth for them...the ladies in my life.  I welcome new friends into my life when I'm lucky enough that the Universe brings them to me.  What the above rant is pertaining to is those such things that are mostly with acquaintances, or "meet and greets", or a friend of a friend's pampered chef party.  You women know exactly what I'm talking about.  The stuff that we are sometimes obligated to do.  UGH!  I do not like being in groups of women that I truly do not know.  It makes me uncomfortable, to the point of my unbearable incessant chatter mode.  I sweat, get stomach aches and even lose sleep when I know I have to attend an event with a group of women I don't know, or hardly know.  Seriously.

What the hell am I talking about this for?  Well, this new role my husband has assigned to me has me jumping into that pool of discomfort more often than not on a weekly basis.  Now, I'm not complaining, per say, about doing it.  I'm just saying that this is the venue that I can use to step back and take a look at what I can learn about myself, and how I can go about changing my perception of it all.  In other words, what can I do to help me pull up my big girl panties and take it all in stride?

To start, I can evaluate women as a whole.  We are first and most important, caregivers.  I don't care what job/profession you have.  If you are married with children or single.  Women, we, care for people.  It is in our genetic make up to do so.  How that care is interpreted is where things get tricky, and I'll discuss that in a bit.  Second, we are fixers.  Our hormones inhibit us from letting things go unfixed, or even with a hint of being incomplete.  I honestly do not know why this is, but suffice it to say, that this inability to leave things undone leads to the very next trait of a woman.  We are constant thinkers.  Yep, we are.  I know, hard to believe.  There is not one woman on this planet, no matter how hard she insists, that does not over think things.  We over think everything from what outfit we are going to wear, to that misinterpreted conversation with our best friend.  Then, we immediately jump into the fixer role which opens the can of worms as to why something didn't go as anticipated, expected or as we wanted, and most often we are then forced into the caregiver role.  Vicious cycle, I know, but it's the way it is.


Those are some of the "less negative" traits of a woman, for the men who may be reading.  A couple of the more negative traits of women, in my humble opinion, are that we NEVER forget and can not delegate to save our lives.  It's true.  You see, our need to care and/or fix totally negates the ability to delegate.  How can we possibly leave things up to others and expect that it will get done, or done correctly?  You may be thinking of the word "control" right now, but trust me, it has nothing to do with control.  It's that inner hunger to fix because we care.  If someone else does it, my mind thinks I don't care enough about it (whatever "it" is), and we just can't have that or we'll over think it.  Get it now?

Lately, I have been in the caregiver role so much that it has forced me to wayyyyy over think things, which in turn, has forced me to feel the compelling need to fix everything.  Oy!  My problem is that sometimes caring is enough.  End of story.  Why is it so hard for me to see that?  Because I'm a woman and my innate need to fall into the "ers" above takes over.  Unfortunately, these needs are causing disharmony in my life.  My intentions are true, that I can say.  But at the same time, my actions, or sometimes inactions, are giving the perceptions of me being controlling or hovering.  Okay, okay, so there are some of you that know I have a serious issue with OCD and being fully in control of my own life, but this is not one of those posts.  I honestly and without a doubt have no intention of controlling any of the things I'm referring to here.  So, it's time for me to take a step back and let the chips fall where they will.

I've said before, I love to teach.  I love to see people thrive from education.  I love when people are given the tools and they build a house.  That is the most rewarding thing for me in life.  Seeing others succeed.  It fills my heart with joy and brings light into my heart.  What I am learning about myself is that once the education is provided, my work is done and I need to start being clearer about that.  That's where I have erred.  Instead of making my intentions known from the very beginning, I just dove in head first and rallied the troops to learn.  Now I'm viewed as the mother hen who needs to approve or give permission for the chicks to go about living their lives.  There are some who, though misjudging me, have started to have some animosity toward me.  All miscommunication, on my part, but still.  I'm not quite sure how to fix the preconceived notions just yet, but backing away and letting the dust settle is probably the correct first step.  I have verbally clarified the situation, now it's time to practice what I preach.

This week I have learned the valuable lesson that you can not MAKE people become a part of something if they do not WANT to become a part of something.  I just have to now not over think how I can fix the people I care about.

Life's a beach, and then you live on one...