sister how do i love myself enough to know your accomplishments are not my failures

we are not each other's competition
Rupi Kaur, The Sun and Her Flowers

In the light (I honestly don't know how favorable) of the last few weeks of high school, I instinctively go back, I think, to all the beliefs I had about myself and about femininity (a principle that seemed completely inaccessible to me and which, invariably, constantly rejected me so as I rejected him too) at the beginning of the ninth grade. In reality, it wasn't my femininity (or so-called lack of it) that was the problem, but the persistent feeling that I didn't conform to all the norms that had been instilled in me since I was little by the most important women in my life. The certainty that I am disappointing them by everything I do or don't do. The fear that I will never be loved by a man because I can't cook. Because I don't have nice hair. Because I'm fat. Because I talk too much and laugh too hard. Because I don't like wearing makeup. Finally, the list can go on and on. What I'm trying to point out is that I was judging myself extremely harshly and at the same time holding almost every other woman around me to the imagined standards of decency/beauty/intelligence that I knew and in my naivety didn't dare set. about a second under the question mark. 

So I still don't understand how a fifteen-year-old girl had the patience to gradually show me, day after day, for four years, how much I underestimate myself and how much I underestimate women and the strength we have together . It may sound cheesy, but I think it all started when she was the one person who not only didn't mind the way I laughed, but actually liked it. To be encouraged to smile widely, to laugh no matter how loud and unevenly I might do it, to stop feeling guilty for talking more than a boy... was the first timid step towards the change I didn't know I needed. 

I'm not saying that before I met her (no, we're not together, but thanks to her I also learned not to mind if someone thinks that) I was using feminist lines trying to impress the guys around me. To show them that I am strong, because I was under the impression that showing the world that all the guys were getting on my nerves meant that I was an emancipated (and more importantly, unapproachable) woman. I had the breakthrough during a Romanian language class (with an absolutely incredible lady teacher who, although declaring that she does not identify with feminism, taught us more about what it's like to be a woman than she can imagine) in which you he asked us if we felt equal to the boys. A question to which I, already imagining myself with a glass of beer in my hand and my legs spread in the stadium (so you can understand what I was reducing the freedom of being a man to), answered, like all the others, that Yes, of course. Only Raisa said that not really. And although there was no time left to debate the boundaries of that one just, I spent the rest of my high school days with her trying to define them together.

I'm going to try to keep making a sort of top list of the most important things I've learned from my friend, who I've seen gradually grow into a woman I'm immensely proud of and who I don't have to ever be able to thank him enough for saving me (and encouraging me to save myself) from a life lived as dictated by society and (most painfully) the people you love. 

To return to the first paragraph and that endless enumeration: the fear that I will never be loved by a man was not, is not and will never be valid. And not just for me. But for every woman in the world. The certainty that you have to be loved by a man to be happy has been ingrained in our minds and souls since we were impossibly young (we even did a make-believe game at one point with Raisa to see how old we were when we understood the first time that we are the helpless princesses in the tower) unbalances us emotionally and creates insecurities from which we cannot escape. Raisa showed me not only that it's not wrong/immoral/immature not to wait for a boy's love, but that there's nothing wrong with women who do. Because I don't think I was the only one who was taught as a little girl that boys like to hunt you, don't give up easily, pretend to be indifferent, don't show them that you're vulnerable. Raisa taught me that I am not a deer and that there is nothing wrong (it does not destroy my character, individuality or independence in any way) to show a guy that I am the last word melted in the tongue after him. My self-esteem has nothing to do with how and how much and who I love. 

It showed me how all the stereotypes of what I thought femininity meant prevented me from dressing the way I liked. I know we were at summer camp together and there was a party that we were all really excited about. The boys had already been waiting for us for some time and I was stressed about upsetting them while everyone else was laughing and helping themselves to get dressed. One of the girls was wearing leather shorts and a fitted top. If my mother had seen it, she would have told me right away that there is too much skin showing and it is not ok. But she was gorgeous and Raisa made sure to point that out. I have learned that I am not 1% responsible for the way my body is sexualized. I learned that I am 100% guilty of the way I sexualize other girls' bodies. 

PS: I know that if Raisa were to write this, she would say that it is not fair to put the maximum percentage because it is not our fault that we are educated this way. 

I learned that I cannot be a feminist without knowing what this movement entails. I'm not interested in the history that reproduces more faithfully than any Instagram post how women have been silenced since the beginning of time. I learned how complex femininity is. How complex masculinity is. That you can't call yourself a feminist if you don't care about Roma or black women. Or if you deny transgender women their rights. I also learned to ask myself how we define a woman. I've learned that I'm no more of a woman on the days I wear heels than the days I wear boots. 

I've learned that our beauties don't compare to each other, I've learned how aberrant posts that discredit certain women to make others feel better (like in a world full of kardashians be a…), I learned how dangerous toxic masculinity can be, how painful gender standards are for both girls and boys. I understood what slutshaming is and learned to stop promoting it. I learned to admire a girl's beauty without automatically cringing at the thought that I could never look like that. I learned to be tolerant with myself and those around me. Not to discuss anything with anyone until I have enough information. Staying in control when someone is sexist/racist. I've learned that it's okay not to wax if I don't want to. That it's okay not to have children if I don't want to. That it's okay if I don't want to have a career and take care of children for the rest of my life. 

Everything stays 

But it still changes

I want to end with the lyrics from her favorite song from Adventure Time, lyrics that capture exactly the force of the small changes it gradually produced in me. Those changes that occur so naturally and gently that you don't notice them immediately, but which end up lasting and turning you into a completely different person. Because I learned from her that we really will never be able to change the world and the way it works, but that it's worth living each day trying.