August 16, 2006 was the day I had officially started my undergraduate studies as a Bennett Belle. I was an emotional wreck filled with uncertainty, and doubt as I entered my “freshwoman” year. Would this historically black college for women, that I’ve never heard of, be able to cultivate, enrich, and unveil the woman that I would become?
One simple answer, YES!
Now, this unveiling process (the college experience), wasn’t one without hardships, and challenges – which I believe most people can relate to. But the process had a purpose, not just for me to attain a degree, but to prepare me for the realities of life as a woman…
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I am Woman
by Keley Smith
The beauty of her tears, the cries of her daughters, the struggles from her past, the stories from her mother… of the glory unseen.
Within a world that’s not accepting of her just “being”, and not just “being”, but being more, or being better, or just being the woman she is destined to be. Shadowed by stereotypes, generational beliefs, and minimum expectations, but given more than what she can actually meet?
Yet in her oasis, where she can silence the fallacies that linger in her head… then and only then can she be awakened to find her own truths.
And not “Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”…
But one of the truths that is evident, is she is not equal on either side of the equation, but she’s patiently waiting for her dividends.
Dividends to distribute to her daughters as she wipes their eyes, while conquering the new challenges within her fears, scripting the new stories that her grandchildren will hear, while still possessing the same beauty within her tears.
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