Whether right or wrong, this is purely my perspective or, as Tony Robbins would call it, my hallucination.  And as my father, who is crude in his humor, would say, opinions are like assholes; everyone has one.

Women are supposed to be strong. Whether it is the truth or not, that is what society says about women.  It stems from how we are brought up and whether truth or not, we climb the ladder in the corporate world or achieve the dreams of being the best wife and mom. 

I am not referring to this new realm of a small group that says they are women when, in fact, they are men who want to be in the mind of a woman. 

 Women from all backgrounds and all over the planet feel they have to be the backbone. This is how we are made to feel. With social media today, it is a stronger force that makes us want to be better and more vigilant at womanhood. 

You see strong women all the time.  A mom who has two little ones at home with a husband who is on active duty raising two children under the age of 4 alone, pregnant with a third child, and is forced to make everything come into alignment so she can have an emergency C-section, get her husband home and mothers on a plane.  Whether she knows it or not, she falls into the role of a strong and magnificent woman.

A woman who has worked her way up the corporate latter from the first role of an assistant and proven her worth to become a partner in a firm only to be pushed down her decisions set aside for someone more senior or of the opposite sex is a strong and vigilant woman.

That ninety-two-year-old who has lived on her own for forty years after her beloved husband passed and her son committed suicide has had to maintain her lifestyle and take care of her home all on her own.  Now at her age, she struggles to rescind her independence and sell her home that she loves so she doesn’t have to work so hard to keep it up and maintain it.  Rather than enjoy the last years of her healthy life with little responsibility, she struggles because what purpose would she have?

A woman who is the Director of Operations over a $35,000,000 producing real estate team, all the while running a household and trying to maintain her dream of being an author with six books under her belt who decides to take three weeks off for surgery that will remove six masses for focal fluid collection from 14-year-old leaky implants and undergo a tummy tuck and lipo at the same time also has a strong countenance. Despite the tough recovery, she tries to work between lucidity and falls short because she just can’t do it all.

Each woman thinks this trial can be easily overcome and can step up immediately into their role, yet the struggle is real.  The mother will have to admit she will need to hold and humble herself to receive it despite the fact that she will have to do it all on her own.  The corporate woman will work more hours than most and have little to no outside social life just to prove she is better than what others may say or what she believes that may say about her.  The everyday woman who is DOO over a real estate team is myself.  I realized after a one-week post-op that I couldn’t do it all. The demands are great no matter how you slice it, but the pain and recovery are greater.  Between lucidity, I have to depend and rely on others even when I don’t want to. My husband said he was feeling guilty that he had to do everything on his own and wasn’t able to rely on me.  Guilt sets in, and now it’s my fault; I’m not one hundred percent available, but it is that stinkin’ thinkin’ that keeps our minds replaying the awful story we are not good enough or strong enough.

Being helpless and not in control while taking care of all things is ingrained in who we are as women. We are strong and capable, and when those walls get forced down, and we are left to pick up the pieces around us, we feel humiliated and defeated. 

But it is said that it takes a village to raise a child. I humbly say that it takes a village to bring a strong woman back up to her rightful position.  No one woman can do it all on her own.  It takes those around her to lift her arms and encourage her that she can do it and do it well, it will just take time to get to where she was prior.  She isn’t an oak tree standing on all her own in an open field. Rather, young oak trees grow slowly and become strong trees. When the wind blows, and they become subject to the wind, they bend and cause the internal structure of the tree to develop.  It trains the tree to become windproof. Oak trees are also able to survive a wide range of soil types, whether they are alkaline and pure or acidic and harsh. Much like life, our soil can be good or bad, but women are strong and can stand against it.

One thing is for certain, when the trees grow together and around each other, they are stronger together against the storms of life when it is thrown against them.

This was written by our contributing writer, Shannon Hrimnak.