Too Much

I wrote this piece after my dear friend, Erin Blevins, was recruited by a company to represent them and then immediately dropped from said company when she wouldn't bend to their requests to lessen, weaken, vanilla herself. Erin is stunningly beautiful and she embodies strength — physically and also the ethereal, uncapturable essence of female strength. What is female strength? She stands in her own. Erin has lost her mother and her daughter and she is still here, still giving, still creating. Could we know anyone stronger? Her muscles are big and her heart is the biggest one. She carries what came before her and what was supposed to come after her and she still gives it to this world. She still works to help others become stronger, and with an ethic those at said company could learn a lot from. I wrote this because I am frustrated by those claiming to support female strength but only as far as their profit margins will take them. I am frustrated and disappointed in individuals who claim to support female strength until they come face to face with strong women who won't bend and fold to their expectations. Meet a woman who honors her own boundaries, heart, and definitions of strength and listen to how many times she is called a 'bitch.' A strong woman stands in her own, she shouldn't have to stand on her own. 

> Blair Speed

Be strong but not too strong.

Be smart but not too smart.

Be beautiful but not too beautiful.

Have muscle but not too much muscle.

Be sexy but not too sexy.

Be a little outside the box but please stay inside this other one we would like to keep you in: the-edgy-sort-of-outside-the-box box.

I am not into the commercialization of empowerment. I am less into the commercialization of pseudo-empowerment, which is a little ditty that goes like this:

Be enough that we can market our product to women but don’t be so much that we can’t mass market. We have sales projections to hit. Don’t be too much that we have to look at our own actions or inactions and feel uncomfortable. Don’t be too much that we are confronted with real strength — real heart of the hard earth strength isn’t as pretty. Look like you’re working hard but don’t work so hard your face grimaces, that’s not pretty enough. Actually, it’s just, you’re too pretty. That makes us uncomfortable too.

Remember, not too strong, darlin’. We’d like to espouse virtue but really we’re just into sales. You can pose now. Just go stand in that perfect light and do what we say, unless you can say exactly what we’d like you to say. Hold on, let’s let HR read it first. Then you can speak. Shhhhhh. Yep. Too much. Please be quiet now. We want to sell strength but you’re a little too strong. Be enough we can use this catchy slogan but don’t make us uncomfortable with your power, self power, female power, portal to the universe power. 


I know you’ve spent your entire life building that strength, holding that strength, and applying that strength when the world has asked too much, but could you cover up a few of those muscles? Certainly that heart, cover that strong beating heart, your breasts are too distracting.

Cover the breasts.

Cover the heart.

Cover the heart that buried your mother.

Cover the heart that buried your daughter.

We’re trying to sell strength here. This is too much. We’re trying to make a sale with as little effort as possible.

Women are a portal to the universe and if you don’t know this then you haven’t had sex with love. Or given birth. Or been born… wait… don’t you remember the portal your mother gave you? How do we forget so quickly?

What is there to say about female strength?

Cover the breasts.

Cover the heart.

Close the portal.

Close the legs.

You’re too much.

Women are asked to create life. To be a home, a refuge, a conduit to consciousness and the creation of the human heart. There are two hearts inside of me. I am a creator. I am the creator. We are asked to hold creation within, we are asked to be split open to give creation to this world. This is the only way to get here. Here you go world. Portal. This is what I can give. Oh, yes, I’ll close my legs now. Sorry, too much. I thought this was feminine strength. I forgot, female strength has small pores and perfect light and shows just the right amount of skin, I mean, the right amount to someone else not the right amount led by the heart held within that skin.


What if the world won’t hold the gift of female strength? Protect our gift? Honor our gift? What if the world refused to protect me? What if the world refused to acknowledge I am the portal to the universe and I should be it’s only gatekeeper. Why does the world try to define my strength for me when I am the author of that definition? What if the people of the world didn’t know how to hold their own power so they tried to take mine?

What is female strength?

Is strength different for a woman?

Is strength training different for a woman?

Every month my breast swell and hurt and ache and my body dips closer to the moon. Ayoooooo! The celestial realm tips out of me. Star dust. Star people.

Every month this soul pod, this portal, this gift of being processes creation or destruction.

Every month.

Every ultra I have raced I have had to change tampons.

Shhhhh you’re doing that too much thing again.

I asked about training not about periods.

Periodized training.

Training blocks.

Blocks.

Go back in the box.

The outside the box box.

Tampon box.

So what, you bleed each month?

So what, you tear the fabric of the universe to bring us all here.

Shhhhh girl. Don’t you want to be strong?

What is female strength?

Shhhhh girl, there are products to sell - small pores, less wrinkles, less wear and tear of the human experience. Then you’ll be a strong beautiful woman, we wrote the definition, you can learn all about it by buying our product.

I know strong men. And, often when I try to speak of the strength of women, I am quickly spoken over as someone points out to me how strong men are too. I know they are. I have known and loved and lost some of the strongest. This has nearly broken me. My husband, one of the strongest, died at 33. His strength so infinite he never needed to make me feel small. He shepherded me to find my voice. “Don’t shhhh, please, please speak up, woman.”

My period was black a week after he died.

“Trav, what do I do?

Can I be strong enough?”

What is female strength?

The universe holds life and death.

Women hold life and death.

It is certainly all connected.

Can we speak of the true heart of the hard earth strength?

It’s within us.

Each of us.

I guess that’s not mass marketing even though it’s universal.

Isn’t there feminine strength within each of us?

Put these shorts on. The Goldilocks ones — not too long, not too short. Please show 1.7cm of ass-crack, our partners agree, it’s the right amount to sell without offending. Please try hard but not too hard that you don’t have a pretty face but remember not too too pretty of a face. That makes us uncomfortable too. We’re trying to show strength here. You’re just too much. This is making us all very uncomfortable.

Sometimes women give birth to existence, we raise and nurture in the home of our wombs, we create new organs inside of us. There are two heartbeats here. This is the only way to get here. We are the miracle workers. Women give birth to life or birth to death — or learn that they cannot give birth at all and that breaks every part of a woman who wants to create. To give. How do I create if the universe denies me creation? How do I maintain my female strength when someone else denies me sovereignty over the creative power of my own soul pod? What if the world demands we are split open no matter what? What if the world asked me, no, told me without saying please, that I had to split open no matter what?

Why do they look for their power in my body?

I am not holding theirs.

I can only hold my own.

I am the universe.

I am here to create.

I am here to give.

I am here to survive.

I am a woman.

What is female strength?

We don’t get to pick the burdens we must carry. They chose us.

Some weights can never be set down.

Cover the breast.

Cover the heart.

Please, close your legs.

There’s an entire universe between them.

This is all too much.

You are too much.

___________

Should we bend our integrity to business?

No!

We should not bend our integrity to business.

We should not bend our integrity to business.

We should not bend our integrity to business.

Shhhhhh.

Again, that too much thing.

We. Should. Not. Bend. Our. Integrity. To. Business.

It’s all become business.

Human Capital Department.

Human Resources.

Internal Revenue Services.

Mine. Extract. Use.

Is it worth defining feminine strength if we can’t profit off it?

Is it worth honoring female strength if it can’t be marketed?

Shhhhh girl, we have products to sell. And we’ll use the profits to help make laws restricting the female strength that makes us so uncomfortable. Shhhhh girl, there are laws to write about you.

We should not bend our integrity to fallible laws written by fallible humans seeking power. The only power there has ever been is within. Is there any chance for personal sovereignty in this world? Fallible humans, fallible laws. The only dominion is within.

Oh, yes, but female strength.

How much do you back squat?

Please, put the short shorts on.

Please, cover the short shorts up.

Shhhhhhh.

This is all too much.

What is female strength?

___________

When I was in the fifth grade I walked into a life-bomb experience, which is generally how it goes with new experiences. I had just moved from rural Kentucky to Florida. I walked into a room for picture day and didn’t realize some folks thought it was a Vogue Exclusive. Bomb! This ain’t how we did it in Kentucky.


Four different PTA moms swarmed me, mortified by my disheveled hair.

“Ummmm, kickball was right before this. I thought effort mattered. Does caring about effort matter? Oh no, looking the part matters to you. Ok, got it.”

Bomb. New experience. Learning. Earth School. This is what we teach young girls. Our girls. I was embarrassed. I was the poor kid compared to Florida suburbia.

“Please don’t draw attention to me. Please stop brushing my hair. You’re making me feel less than. You’re saying how I look means more than the fact that I was JUST PICKED FIRST FOR KICKBALL!”

Not first female. First human. That meant something to me. I felt so strong a moment ago. How could that be taken so fast?

Get into the box, girl.

Shhhhh girl.


The effort mattered to me. They said I was not enough. But I was picked first — not on appearance, on effort, on heart. What are we teaching young girls? Our girls? What about my strength?

I walked up to the Lifetouch Studio backdrop and was told by The Swarm, “Boys can hold the football. Girls can hold the teddy bear.” A fucking teddy bear? I thought this whole life thing was about effort? I was too young to know but I knew, the effort mattered. The heart matters. The heart of effort matters. I reached for the football. I sat down. I looked straight into the eyes of the PTA moms whose jaws dropped — this ain’t no Vogue. I sat down for my picture and I smiled the biggest smile I’ve ever had in a school picture; a fifth grade middle finger.

Female strength.

Shhhh girl.

No, I won’t.

I didn’t know I would learn Feminine Strength from my younger self. I should listen to her more often. Hello, Feminine Strength, you were there all along. Intuition. Heart. Strength. Effort. It has only ever been within. No one can take this strength away. Whatever they sell, whatever laws they make to try to make you smaller, they still can’t take this strength away. Why does the world look away from you? Turn from you? Mass market a false version of you? Hurt you? Quiet you? Dishonor you? Why does the world hold out teddy bears to us, to young girls? We do not have to accept them.

Sometimes this world tries to take away the keys to Self, keys to the portal, keys to the infinite. Sometimes by selling you what you don’t need, sometimes by writing laws that say you don’t know and can’t know. Laws that say others know what’s best for you.

Human Capital Department.

Mine.

Use.

Extract.

For profit.

For power.

But politicians can never know you. They think the power resides outside of you, but we know, it is within you, has only ever been within. They play a game they have already lost: bent their integrity in search of what can only be found within but sometimes strength means not bending.

Do not bend to him, girl.

Do not bend to her, girl.

Strength can’t be sold, it can only be held.

Strength can’t be taken, it can only be expressed by the one who holds it.

What is female strength?

Maybe the only definition that matters is the one written by the heart of the effort.

By the heart of the woman.

By the heart of the girl.

Uncover the heart.

Uncover the breast holding the beating heart. 


Sometimes strength is being too much or not enough for anyone outside and being just right for who’s within. Sometimes strength is learning to listen to younger selves. I am sorry girl, I am listening now. I hope we all start listening.