Too

 

Too.

A small three-letter word that has

Limited me,

Made me second-guess,

Led me to question myself.

Too.

Too demanding.

Too talkative.

Too quiet.

Too bossy.

Too emotional.

Too perfectionistic.

Too smart.

Too hard-working.

Too busy.

Too strong of a personality.

Too much.

Too.

Other women throughout time, throughout literature, and throughout lessons taught to girls and boys were too . . . .

Eve was too curious,

Too trusting,

Too persuasive.

And look at what happened.

Because she was too (even though Adam was there to hear the whole discussion), she was held accountable and blamed for the doom of mankind forever.

Bathsheba was too tempting,

Too beautiful,

Too alone,

Too willing to obey a king,

And the Man after God’s Own Heart fell.

Guinevere, too, was too lustful,

Too deceitful,

Too unfaithful,

And Camelot ended.

Other women in other times and other cultures were

Too different,

Too weird,

Too something.

So different, so weird, so something they were

Drowned,

Burned,

All to prove their innocence

Or to prove they’re (or their)

Too much.

Too.

Women have been

Too commonly judged for strengths,

Too often held to a different standard,

Too rarely allowed to talk and vote and have a say in things,

Too limited in their opportunities and education,

Too fragile or too helpless to have their own thoughts,

Too criticized for wanting a job and a family,

Too pulled apart by ideals and advice

And remonstrations of

How a good girl acts

And speaks

And dresses

And looks

And holds herself

And runs her family

And  cooks and cleans and irons

And expresses herself

And puts everyone first before herself.

I am, too.

I am too.

But I am proud to be

Too strong to be in a fetal position when life has fallen apart,

Too stubborn to let insecure men (or women) make me feel less than,

Too loud to keep my voice to myself,

Too emotional to be numb to life’s passions and treasures,

Too much of a mother to give up, 

Too unwilling to let another abuse me any longer,

Too loving to give up on love,

Too contrary to let others’ mistreatment of me determine my treatment of others,

Too hard of hearing to believe mistruths,

Too much for some.

I was ashamed for years for being too.

Now I am trying to find more ways to be a more authentic,

More real,

More true version of myself 

With all my too’s allowed to

Whisper,

Speak, and

Shout.

To

Be seen,

Be bold,

Be appreciated, and

Be heard.

To seed,

To bloom,

To flower,

To flourish,

To fertilize, and

To cast wide.