A strong woman walks differently than the masses.
The air around her settles like the simmering flames of a wildfire and those who see her are washed with the sense that she has came and conquered. She knows no expectation the world branded on her ancestors; she lives by way of the ones she found for herself. The expectations set forth for women by history have caused many young girls to believe they should be a certain way– and these strong women prove this premonition false. We weren’t born to complete an image or fit a mold. Human potential cannot be measured or contained.
As I grew up I discovered that the women around me are living examples of women who forgot the world’s expectations and forged their own. These women carried strength like an army through hardships and exemplify the idea that our potential for strength and success is equal to that of our male counterparts– even while we differ from them.
When a woman encounters hardship, we stare into its dreadful face and watch the pain that accompanies it waltz across the thresholds to our lives. Pain, the companion of hardship, makes a home in our chests deeper than the ocean and more massive than any mountain. Yet somehow, we drag perseverance out of the depths of our heart, we look that pain in the face and refuse to let it hinder the fullness of our successes and of our life. The women I know take their pain with a responsibility to lessen hardship for others; they react to omens of doom with a smile, and they refuse to fall down without rising from the ashes.
Everyday I bear witness to the masses of amazing women rising up to fill grandiose shoes, becoming leaders, being role models, all the while exuding courage in foreign situations. Never before in history has humanity seen so many women gracefully redefine and squander the expectations set out for us by the past.
To me, the extraordinary women of everyday life possess insurmountable prominence because they present the youth looking to them with a fierce truth. You’ll never witness a soul turn misery into magic, quite like a woman.
(quite like my mother)
Author: Alyssa Burley
Email: [email protected]
Author Bio: Alyssa Burley is an aspiring author, magazine columnist and photographer. She resides in Dayton, Ohio, and you can reach her on Instagram or Twitter.
Link to social media or website: Instagram @Alyssaburley
