Most countries don't have a Mother's Day, Father's Day, Grandparent's Day, etc.. In the US however, there's a celebration for everyone and everything. You can thank Hallmark for that. Yet, March 8th, Women's Day, is mentioned and glanced over to more important things, or people who are in the spotlight already.
Where I'm from, Women's Day was always a big deal. Even here, twenty years later, we still make a huge deal about it. It's a celebration of all the women. Not just a mother, but every female, young or old, married or unmarried. We have gatherings, parties, random men and boys give out flowers to women they've never even met. The flowers aren't important nor the fact that the young man who just handed you a flower has never seen you before, it's the gesture and recognition.
Celebrating the presence of women in our lives is very important. You cannot have a movement to change the world or its rules if you don't stand together, support each other, raise each other up. Too many females look down on others yet hope to achieve something in their own life. It doesn't work like that. You might be your mother's daughter but that doesn't mean you are your mother. We learn from each other, from other females, the things we want or don't want, how we want to be and what we'd love to avoid. The presence of a woman in anyone's life matters, no matter her position or title. You can choose who you'd like to look up to.
Who inspires you? It doesn't necessarily have to be a female. Who or what inspired you to start writing in the first place? Who supports your passion?
For me, it was Mrs. Poe, my English teacher who saw something in my writing no one else cared to see. Mind you, my English was in the beginning stages of sentence building back then and yet she saw potential. Every essay I ever wrote came with little notes that inspired me to learn faster, to write more, and every time I received a paper back, I eagerly looked for her notes to see what she thought of my writing. She wasn't anyone famous, not a writer herself, but her words meant the world to me.
My mom supported my passion but she always thought it's just a phase. Book reading? A phase. Poetry? A phase. Only years later did she realize that I wasn't giving up on my passion no matter what anyone said or thought.
It's been over twenty years since I graduated high school, yet every time I write something I'm proud of, I think of my old English teacher and silently thank her for giving me that push to keep writing even though I didn't know how word a sentence properly.
So if you haven't yet, celebrate the women in your life and thank them for the things they've thought you and write them a short story or two about what they've inspired in you.
'til next time!
~ Gaby |