Becoming a woman.

Before I turn 29.

I hated when I woke up a 25-year-old. Alarm bells went off and I looked at my life and thought- what have become of me? What am I doing with my life? Where am I going?

No job, no husband.

I missed the perfect life bus.

Now I am simply chasing it down the road to a forever of seconds, I really tried to be positive but it was just hard, my life looked bleak in my imagined gloom of a life.

In a short space of time, a lot has changed and my ambitions and dreams are no longer defined by what is expected of me by society.

I used to say it so much but it was too far from the truth, I do not care who thinks what of me! I felt like a gothic teen rebelling against norms and tradition, embracing everything dark, unexpected and risqué.

All these things, to a girl from a completely different world are absolutely normal, but for me, there’s only one type of woman that the society I was raised in has engineered and everything short of that is easily discarded as insert derogatory word.

It is a good thing I didn’t tattoo my body and pierce my face to emphasise my rebellion and I am assuming my trying to maintain a lawyer wannabe’s physical appearance saved me a great deal because phases pass and now I find myself blossoming into a woman and letting go of little parts of me that do not feed into the idea that I have of what a good powerful woman is.

I have worn shorts, just to expose my legs and not feel 'slutty', silly things like that made me feel like I was starting a rebellion of my own when it is constantly hammered in that a good woman is modest.

She is this and she is that, but I think I can now define a powerful woman and not have to make reference to her religious and spiritual beliefs.

I can define her without attaching a man next to her or a job title or her children.

She is human, authentic and before all the responsibilities assigned to her she is a little girl who was born into the world, she needs to smell the flowers and walk bare feet. She needs to laugh and be cared for. Does she need to be loved without the need to chasten her for stepping out of line because why did you feel the need to draw the line in the first place?

Over time, she loses that and adapts to the external forces that attack her character and in a bid to protect herself she creates walls that keep her closed off by becoming a mixture of expectations from different situations - become a mutant.

A promiscuous prude – She is expected to be a lady in the street and a freak in the sheets, a duality that expects of her to be what the world needs from her. She is groomed to be pleasing to her teachers, her parents, her community, her man and the last person she must please is herself.

And at 29, I am choosing to please me.

I have decided that before I settle down, before I name accomplishments, before it all, I am destroying the wall that I have hidden from to shield myself from rejection, from failure, from disappointment because all it has served to do is attract those very things I fear into my reality.

The reason we fear falling short is our innate need for validation, and well can I be the one validating myself this year?

That is my gift to myself.

I want to completely let go of expectations, to become me, to walk my path, to find my way, to smell flowers and walk bare feet, unafraid.

It is time.