Solange: Women Living Outside of the Expectations of Others

I remember when Solange cut her hair. It was an adorable short crop, but people were angry, and she went on the Oprah Winfrey show and addressed it. That’s how big of a deal people made it. She went on Oprah. I found the entire thing interesting because I had seen her in a more mainstream magazine, where many of the commenters were comparing her afro-akin hairstyle to an animal. I adore animals but the comparison wasn’t meant to be a compliment.

Ever since then, I have paid attention to how she lives her life outside of expectations. We women can live our lives outside of the social expectations of others.

Women can live our lives outside of the expectations of others.

And I think more women deserve to hear that without somebody immediately reminding us of our responsibilities.

You can be a good woman without being everybody’s dependable woman. You can be loving without being endlessly available. You can be generous without making your entire life a resource for other people to draw from.

For generations, women have been handed descriptions of what a good life should look like. Be a wife. Be a mother. Be attractive, but not too attractive. Be ambitious, but don’t intimidate anybody. Be independent, but don’t make anybody feel unnecessary. Age gracefully, but don’t look old.

Even when you meet them they will STILL get mad. And then add more stuff. 

There has to be room in a woman’s life for the woman herself.

Room for her interests, her imagination, her friendships, her quiet afternoons, her mistakes, her changing mind. Room to discover that something she once wanted no longer fits the person she has become.

She doesn’t have to turn every talent into income, every relationship into marriage, every free hour into service, or every personal decision into a public explanation.

And she certainly doesn’t have to spend her entire life proving that her choices are acceptable to people who won’t have to live with the consequences.

One of the freedoms women have worked so hard to secure is the freedom to decide what makes a life worth living.

A woman’s life is not an assignment handed to her by everybody else. It belongs to her.

And sometimes the most beautiful thing a woman can do with that freedom is something ordinary. Take a class. Grow tomatoes. Travel with a girlfriend. Stay home and read. Change careers at fifty. Wear her hair the way she likes. Decide she doesn’t want to marry. Or marry someone she loves and build a life that suits them both.

Not every choice has to be revolutionary to be an expression of freedom.

Sometimes a woman is simply enjoying the life she has a right to live.

And that is enough.

 SurvivorAffirmations:

I am allowed to build a life that makes sense to me, even when other people imagined something different. I can love people without living according to their expectations. My happiness, my peace, my curiosity, and my dreams deserve a place in my own life, too.