holding up walls.

it was the end of a long day, and i was waiting for the elevator when a woman walked up and looked at me, saying, "holding up walls, eh?" and i laughed and said, "yes". yes. yes i am. i laughed because it is so succinct. i think about the women in my life. all these women. all these beautiful wonderful women. women who make me cry and ache. women who teach me how to laugh, who show me how to love. women who have no idea what they mean to me. women i have only caught glimpses of. women who leave me wanting more from myself than i had ever imagined possible. and my sisters. my sisters who are my world. my sisters who give me reason enough to fight harder than i think i can, to be smarter and tougher than i feel. my sisters who remind me to feel. all of these women who show me what beauty is, what brilliance is, what devastation is. and we are all holding up walls.

and i think of my sisters and this struggle we call living and think we are doing the best we can to hold up these walls. and i know that prometheus and atlas have nothing on us. there is nothing glamourous about this job of holding up these walls that we know can crush us if we stop pushing. that still manage to crush us sometimes, even when we are holding them up. this is not the tragedy of ancient myths. this is the tragedy that was never written in those myths. this is the tragedy of being denied space, the tragedy of having to sweat and struggle and fight through our fears and insecurities and indifference and oppression in order to remain standing. for this alone, we deserve more than the myth we were not given.

but don't ever forget that this is what you do. because we are told all the time, that this is not what we do, that this is something we don't have to do. and it's a lie. it's all a lie. while we are all busy holding up our walls, it is so easy to forget that we are standing together. our sweat runs together, and we keep each other alive. and the walls sometimes seem to close in, and the tiredness is overwhelming, and when that happens, i remind myself to look up. look up. look up at your sisters. see how much love can fit within tight spaces and how love itself pushes the walls back. that's the secret. that's what we've never been told. look up.

the walls are still standing. as are we. we have gotten so very good at this, that we forget how incredible our work is. we are holding up walls. so, the answer is yes. yes, i am. yes, we are.