Sugar and Spice … All The Women in Me

At the very heart of me lies family.

Those who know me well, or at least a little, will know that I love many things dearly: Literature, babies, people, dogs, wine…

But more than all of those, I love my family.

Not just my immediate family either.

While my extended family is bigger than anything ever needs to be and takes ages to come to together for anything other than a wedding or a funeral, with all their quirks and quibbles, I love them.

All of them.

Even the ones I don’t always particularly like.

(Oh, don’t judge me. I’m sure many of them don’t particularly like me all the time either.)

I don’t spend every weekend with them and we’re all so busy that weeks and months can pass without us speaking through more than Facebook updates, Instagram posts and WhatsApp group forwards, but when all else fades away, they’re the people I’d want next to me.

While I love the men in my family, those I hold “dear and warm like day does dawn” (word to Miles Hodges) the most are the women.

The women in my family are beautiful. And I’m not just saying that because I’m part of them.

But beyond them all being gorgeous women who turn the head of just about any man (or woman), they’re strong.

The women in my family have gone it alone. They’ve raised children by themselves, run households and farms and businesses singlehandedly and looked good doing it.

The women in my family have known hurt. They’ve been bent and shaken and twisted, but never broken.

The women in my family have stood up for themselves. They’ve said no, they’ve said yes against the odds and when it was necessary, they’ve said “f*ck you”. Though perhaps not in exactly those words.

They’ve made mistakes, they’ve stumbled and sometimes they’ve fallen but they’ve never stayed down.

They’ve gotten up, raised themselves – and often each other – up, and started again. Started over.

And it is when life gets really tough, when everything gets too much and I wish I could just stay in bed forever, that I think of them.

The women in my family are all inside of me. Little bits of each of my cousins, my aunts, my mother.

And it is because of them that I am.

Because they have, I can.

Because they have, I will.

Nayyirah Waheed once wrote “all the women in me are tired”. And yes, sometimes that’s true.

But more than that, all the women in me are warriors.

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