Dear Maire,
I started this journey as my own but continue it for you and only you. All of my children are important, that is true. But you, my dear, were born a girl and I know far too well how that goes. Being born human is difficult enough without throwing on top of that a world of expectations that contradict one another at every turn. You probably already know a thing or two about this at the age of 8 without even realizing it yet. Play with dolls, don’t play with dolls, like pink, don’t like pink, eat, don’t eat, short, but not too short, cut your hair, don’t cut your hair. Let me tell you, girl, this is just the beginning and it only gets more complicated from there. Three simple words—you do you.
Your brothers’ world is difficult too but it is simply not as difficult as yours will be. That is why I do what I do and now continue to do it for you. Someday, someone will try to take advantage of you. Someday, someone will comment on your looks and make you feel ugly. Someday, someone will do something to you that makes you feel uncomfortable. Someday, you will allow something that you later regret. Someday, you will come to know your power and worth.
From the womb, I have known your anger and the fire that you were born with has only grown as the years have passed. You tossed and turned in my uterus and spent a year waking in the middle of almost every single night. You drained me that year, I nearly broke. Now that you sit in the middle of your childhood, I look to the future and worry though it is something I know I cannot control. There are days when I want, more than anything, to douse your flames with buckets of water until you no longer know what rage is. I am in awe of your nature and, if I am to be honest, a little terrified of it too. I worry that your teen years will tear our bond to shreds. I worry that you will grow to hate me for restricting you when you will undoubtedly crash through boundaries on your way to shattering glass ceilings and smashing brick walls. Please, I beg you, don’t hate me.
The blood in your veins is thick and carries the hopes, dreams, pain, and despair of all the women that came before you. Is this why you get so angry sometimes? Do you somehow know what these women had to go through? Abuse, poverty, neglect, rape, rejection, miscarriages, and untimely deaths to name just a few. You see, Maire, I task you with what I have tasked myself—to use your fire to burn any and all toxicity that remains in order to create new flames that will serve only to enlighten and illuminate the women that will come after you. That is a big ask, I know. There will be days on which you will doubt your abilities and think that your power is lost. On those days, reread these words that I will one day share with you. Your power lies in your blood and in the dried tears of your foremothers—it will always be there and can never be taken, that much I know. Great things will descend from your existence and mine. We are in you and with you on every step of your journey. I see the fire in your eyes, look in the mirror and you will see it too.
Love,
Mom