Courtney--Undoubtedly Me

Undoubtedly Me

Hanging in my room since I was an infant was a quote by Diane von Furstenberg which reads, “I didn’t always know what I wanted to do, but I knew the kind of woman I wanted to be.”  As most little girls do, I spent my early years reading fairytales and dreaming of my prince coming to pick me up and give me everything I needed in life. But luckily for me, I had a mother who loved me enough to tell me that no prince would come to give me everything I needed in life.

 My mother grew up in a quaint little town in southern Alabama where women strove to be the ideal “Southern Bell”.  My mother wore pearls and gloves whenever she left the house, she made sure that when my father arrived home that dinner was on the table and our house was tidy, and she always made sure the bows in my hair were straight.  On lookers would probably gaze upon her life and think to take pity her.  So many people look only at the surface of this lifestyle and think she’s living a lie that she could not possibly be content in the way she’s living.  Little did they know what kind of woman my mother really was. 

My mother was a woman of dignity and she would always tell me to never pretend to be someone I wasn’t especially for a boy.  She taught me to love my femininity without using it as a crutch for avoiding difficult things in my life. My mother taught me to read books and make them a priority.  She was enthralled with Maya Angelo and the way she read her poems impressed upon my heart the truth of those words.  Not only did she instill in me the importance of knowledge, she taught me to be compassionate. The cookies she baked every Friday weren’t to make my father happy; she made them to for the elderly gentleman at the end of our street who had lost his wife when I was six to cancer.  You wouldn’t believe the look on his face he had the first time we went. 

Now, that I am coming upon my 18^th year of life, the first thing I’m all too often asked what am I planning to do with my life.  I always think of that quote when I’m asked this and say I’m still unsure what I will do with my life but I know how I’m going to live it.  I’m going to live as a woman of honour.  I will carry myself with grace and smile at strangers.  I will study things that light a fire in my soul and will help me better the world around me.  I’m going to live a life that I love and only allow people into it that will help me love it deeper. Most importantly though, I want to be the woman my mother raised me to be.