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Thursday, April 30, 2026
I don’t really know who I’m trying to be as a woman anymore.
It sounds like a big statement, but I don’t mean it in an abstract way. I mean it pretty literally. It’s not that I sit around consciously trying to define my identity every day; it’s more that I keep noticing how many expectations exist, and how inconsistent they all are, and I don’t fully fit into any of them.
Some days, it feels like I’m supposed to be composed. Put-together. Self-assured in a way that looks effortless. Other days, it feels like the expectation is the opposite: to be carefree, detached. And I move between those things without feeling like either one is actually me.
What makes it more confusing is how clear other versions of womanhood seem to be, at least from the outside. There are people who appear certain of themselves, or at least consistent in how they present themselves. And I can’t tell if I’m missing some understanding they have, or if they’ve just become better at performing certainty.
I don’t think I have a negative relationship with being a woman. It’s more that I don’t fully understand what it’s supposed to look like in practice. A lot of the expectations feel implied rather than explained, and I keep finding out about them only when I don’t meet them.
There’s also this quiet pressure to already be “secure” in it; to have a clear sense of confidence, identity, and presentation. But I don’t feel like I’ve arrived at that point. Most of the time I feel like I’m still figuring it out in real time, without any clear reference point for what “figured out” is supposed to look like.
I think that’s what I keep circling back to: I don’t feel like I’m failing at being a woman, exactly. I just don’t feel like I’ve been given a stable definition of what that would even mean. So I end up adjusting constantly, trying to interpret expectations that don’t come with instructions.
And honestly, I don’t have a conclusion for this. Just the ongoing sense that I’m still trying to understand something everyone else seems to treat as already understood.