Today is INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY!!! 🙂 Happy Women’s day you Queens!!!
One of the most relevant holidays we have really! Its good to celebrate people, especially if they are as grand as women. I think being a woman needs first and foremost a lot of courage, which is something I am still learning to embody, I guess that’s why I don’t fully embrace that title of being a woman. I’m only 19, I think that is still a very ” young lady” stage.
Traditionally though, I know with the Xhosa culture, a girl becomes a woman when she gets her period which was in those days was around 16 years old. Now girls get their period at an even earlier age. Mother told me this amazing story of how when she reached that stage, the family had a feast, it was a celebration and she received gifts and words of wisdom from all the other women in the family and the village. They didn’t wait for a 9th of August to come so that they could celebrate their womanhood.
I thought that was really amazing, because that is a very fragile stage in any girls life and knowing that other women around you have your back is very comforting. I was also very surprised as to why it was such a big deal to my mother when I got my period, but that’s only because I’m growing up now in a society that doesn’t value and appreciate women as much as they should. It’s a beautiful thing and I think my kids, should they be girls, will receive the same treatment in that area of their lives and the same with any other young girl growing up I this day and age.
Being a woman is not an easy thing. You are forever learning and growing as a woman, there is no final stage that you need to get to. It is your whole entire life. So with that being said, perhaps I could say that womanhood has just introduced itself to me and I have hugged it with both hands like my first teddy bear, exchanging secrets like we did not believe in passwords. And I am learning to wear it better than ever before. Kudos to all the women out there who are wearing the cloak like it is their own skin. You are to be glorified, everyday, forever!!!!