CALL FOR HONESTY! Part 1

*This is just the start to what will be a series of discussions about honesty between women, I wonder how our relationships would be if we could be more honest with each other about our choices and how we feel about them.*


The other day I looked in the mirror as I was heading out to work and thought to myself, “It could just be you for the rest of your life, are you ok with that?” I would have answered the question but I was on my way to work with 10 things on my mental list of things to do and answering that question was not one of them! I am the SBF (Single Black Female) who works really hard on a career, blah blah blah. You already know that story. I could tell you for days the benefits of going to school and focusing on a career and not being distracted by men and babies when you aren’t ready, blah blah blah, but again, you have already heard that story. What you haven’t heard is the truth. I know, truth among women is almost a foreign concept. Because even when we are friends/sisters/cousins/mothers/daughters we still aren’t honest with each other about our lives and how we feel about the choices we make. Even among our closest female friends we still aren’t truthful about how we feel about our choices. Maybe it is for fear of judgment. Maybe it is for fear of feeling like a hypocrite. Maybe it is not fear at all and simply a desire to remain on a perceived higher ground than the next woman. Either way, I am here to say, it is all BS! So today I am calling on all women to be honest with each other. As a demonstration of good faith, I will start with being honest about the life of one SBF in New York City.
 Honestly, I have no regrets about getting my education when I did because I feel that I am better for it. I think on every level of my life, it has served me to be educated and the things I have learned can never be taken away from me.
 Honestly, I go to work every day and really love what I do. I don’t love every minute of it but overall I feel rewarded by my job because it is directly correlated to what I went to school and studied to do. I work extremely hard most days and feel most useful when I am working hard. My career has been the most important thing to me, people judge me for that and I understand that. I don’t begrudge my career at all. I begrudge what I give up in order to have it, time.
 Honestly, at one point in my life, I thought my career would be enough to satisfy my needs. I now know that it will not. I am saddened by this discovery because I put a ton of effort and an entire decade of commitment into something that I now know will not be enough.
 Honestly, I also know that a marriage and a baby wouldn’t be enough for me either, hence my desire to have it “all”.
 Honestly, I am not married. The reason I am not married is not because no one wanted to marry me. That isn’t the reason most unmarried woman remain unmarried.
 Honestly, I don’t begrudge married women. But I am only happy for happily married women. If you are just married, it means nothing to me. To be married and miserable is nothing to be happy for. You could be over here in single girl land for all that. (Same goes for women in relationships. Who, by the way are still Single in my mind, if you aren’t married, you are Single, sorry.)
 Honestly, as far as I know, I am not barren. So the reason I don’t have children, much like the reason I am not married isn’t because no one wanted to have a baby with me. Furthermore, I have a relationship with God, so the implication that for some reason he hasn’t “blessed” me with a baby is absurd, offensive and generally ridiculous. Same goes for that implication regarding a husband.
 Honestly, I do not begrudge women with children, (today) I feel like I one day I will want to have children. But I know that I didnt want to have children in any of my circumstances then, so I didn’t. Doesn’t feel like a missed opportunity as much as it feels like something I didn’t focus on then when it would have been a lot easier to get it, when I knew less about the world and when I knew less about myself. And to speak to the point above regarding happily married women, mothers who make motherhood look like the worst thing in the world don’t move me either. When a woman has a child and she loves and adores that child, I smile at that, I am happy for her regardless of her situation. When women just have babies because they got pregnant and show no real motherly instinct, I judge them.
 Honestly, I think about some of those circumstances and wonder if a kid then would have been worse than no kid forever. Same goes for a husband.
 Honestly, sleeping alone every night gets old very fast. And while I hardly spend that much time in my bed during certain times of the year due to work, it would feel much better to hit that pillow laying next to a man I love, respect, honor and adore.
 Honestly, that bed alone being filled with just someone to fill the bed for that night is a temporary fix for a very permanent desire. Nothing replaces the real thing. However, the needs of a woman must sometimes be met with a place holder, either with a beating heart or a powerful battery.
 Honestly, being book smart and focused doesn’t make you exempt from ridiculous and foolish behavior when it comes to matters of the heart. It doesn’t make you better able to see the BS from a man, it doesn’t make you less susceptible to whatever game is out there. It does however make people’s tolerance for watching you go through it pretty low.
 Honestly, I question my choices every day. The choice of work, the choice of waiting until everything is “right”, the choice not to “settle”, the choice to let certain relationships go, the choice to hold on to others, the choice to believe in the fantasy – I question those choices. I don’t know that this road was the only road, honestly.
 Honestly, I judge everyone. (No further explanation necessary)
 Honestly, I know people judge me. (See above)
 Honestly, I get lonely but I am usually so tired from work and or hanging out that I don’t realize it.
 Honestly, I am not dying to share everything with a man – I cherish my independence.

And that is just a start being honest with my fellow ladies. But I need everyone to be honest. Mothers (single or married) need to start being honest with women without children about what it is really like to be a mom. Married women need to start being honest with single women about what marriage is like without feeling like that single woman will use that coveted information to squeeze her way into her marriage because she is just that desperate to be in her shoes. Single women need to be honest with their married friends about how it feels to be without a husband without fearing you will look lonely. Everyone in every circumstance has something that another may envy, except they may only envy it because of how much better they think it is than their own circumstance. If women were more honest with each other, we may be better equipped to help each other through life.

I say all this to say one thing. Women are supposed to be a part of a sisterhood, specifically women who choose to be together in life. If we can’t be honest with each other about our choices and what those choices mean, than how can we ever have relationships that aren’t inherently adversarial? Furthermore, if we aren’t sharing our stories, how will we come up with what to tell our daughters or future generations that will come after us? If all we know about is our own story and why we made our own choices, how can we guide those coming after us on the variety of options they have?