When I say I don’t want to be strong I’m not talking about physical strength, I’m talking about everything else. I’m talking about the strong woman complex and most especially the strong black woman complex. Some way, somehow it became a standard and a norm to be tagged as strong. In some cases this is a compliment, but most cases it isn’t.
I don’t want to be strong. I don’t want to suffer continuously just to succeed. I don’t want to go through hardship just because we have decided that a success story must begin with tragedy. If you haven’t suffered, then you haven’t earned it.
Must I go through hell before I get to heaven gates? I must prove myself every day and, in every way, just because society decided that pain is mandatory.
Staying in relationships, marriages, friendships, jobs, circumstances and situations that hurt me is somehow better for me because society says so. Add to walk 10 miles even when the option of seeking other means of transportation is available because for some reason I haven’t earned that privilege.
I must stay in a hostile environment not because I don’t know better but because the devil you know is better than the angel you don’t know. ‘There’s nothing out there’ ‘What if you find worse’ ‘it’s better to be married than single’ ‘at least you are in a relationship’ ‘you are getting older’ ‘your biological clock is ticking’ and the worst most popular of them all ‘what will people say?’
So many things are said and done to make you prove that you are strong. Why do I have to prove it? What for? For who? My suffering is somehow a right of passage but a passage to what? Many have died in this suffering trying to be strong but yet we are still encouraging others to suffer.
I don’t want to be strong because I don’t have to be. I don’t have to suffer before I have the right succeed. I don’t have to lose myself to prove myself to anyone. I don’t want to sacrifice myself for anyone and everyone.
I don’t want a hard life. I want a soft one. I want a life where I can have whatever I want because I deserve it. I want a soft life where my needs are considered, where I am looked as a person first before anything else.
I want to be happy for myself. I want to do things that pleases me and not others. I want to do what I want not what is expected of me. I want to live my life for me and no one else. I want to be with people that make me happy, not the ones that drain me. I want to find the love that cherishes me, not tolerates me. I want everything I desire and I will have everything I desired because I am worthy no matter what anyone else thinks.
Suffering is not what I was brought into this world to do and I will not settle for less because someone else doesn’t want more or they don’t believe that I deserve more. I am not a strong black woman or a strong woman. I’m just a person and I deserve to be treated like one.
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