It’s no secret I struggle, or that I struggle a lot and deeply. I wish I could be one of those amazingly together women who are calm in crisis, joyful in suffering and wake up singing with the birds like Snow White.—But then, none of you who are my friends would find me as endearing as you do right now, right?

Truth is, I’m more like Lily Tomlin in "9 to 5" or Josie Grossy in "Never Been Kissed" than any of my Disney princess heroines. I once told someone I was about as feminine and at home in a dress as Whoopi Goldberg. I was thinking of her character in Ghost and in my mind seeing her walking down the street looking more like a drag queen than a real woman. That’s how I feel when I try to play dress up and look all "sexy."

Recently I saw Whoopi in a comedy special on Bravo. She didn’t look at all awkward in her own skin. Rather she looked completely comfortable with herself, her body, her femininity, her womanness. I Googled her image and came across this photo. She looks decidedly vulnerable and feminine to me, beautiful. I realized I’ve completely misjudged her as a woman.

Maybe I’ve misjudged myself too.

Tonight I came across  this post by Emily McGowin. She’s a new discovery for me, and a blessing that I was in desperate need of tonight. My sexuality (apparently) took quite a beating at a very young age. It cowers in the corner most days and other days beats the living crap out of itself for merely existing. No, I’m not at all one of those amazing women who has it all together. I need to be reminded often that I don’t have to be, that God loves me just the way and how I am, that, as Emily says,

"there is nothing in you that is inherently un-feminine or un-womanly. Being female, being feminine, is something very personal."

I needed to hear that tonight. I needed someone to celebrate my womanness for me because I just couldn’t do it myself. Now I think I can, at least for tonight. Come celebrate with me, won’t you?

This is for all you girls about 42
Tossin’ pennies into the fountain of youth
Every laugh, laugh line on your face
Made you who you are today
This one’s for the girls
Who’ve ever had a broken heart
Who’ve wished upon a shooting star
You’re beautiful the way you are
This one’s for the girls
Who love without holdin’ back
Who dream with everything they have
All around the world
This One’s for the girls

I only know it started early this morning, perhaps when TiVo was trying to record something random for the umpteen millionth time when all I wanted was to watch GMA. It grew when I once again couldn’t lock my front door with my key because the lock is too stiff (guess it needs WD-40??) forcing me to lock it from the inside, go through the back door and lock that then walk through the wet grass (it rained early this morning) to get to my car. And it exploded fully with all the idiots on the road this morning who insisted on doing 10 mph in front of me down every road I went even though there was no traffic in front of them and the speed limit was 40+. Aaaauuugghhh!

My Royal Bitch Mode (RBM) continued unabated throughout work, as my boss found nit-picky errors in the formatting of the Budget Directives I was desperately trying to get out to our IT department for web publication. Poor man had to put up with me snapping and being utterly snarky at every turn.

The RBM kept its strong hold on me as I drove home, once again behind people going 10
mph down 35mph+ streets all because a few rain drops dared to fall on their cars. All the way to the grocery store I spewed forth words that would make a sailor blush.

It didn’t get any better as I walked the isles of Publix wracking my brain for all the
things I needed to get (forgot to write a list), looking in vain for several items I really wanted to get and never found and failing miserably at avoiding all the children and haggard mothers creating chaos in every isle.

I know I was a complete and total bitch all day. I tried not to let it take me completely down, but the RB inside pinned me to the floor and took over in spite of my every effort. And no matter what I tried I could not get rid of the ‘tude and act like a lady.

I didn’t deserve any reward, but I gave myself one anyway — I guess for just surviving the day without killing anyone. I treated myself to something I haven’t had in nearly four months, a Starbucks iced chai latte (I broke the caffeine habit at the end of May). It tastes wonderful, and took the edge of the RB. Now that I’m safe at home and in my comfort clothes and watching my TiVo-recorded shows, the RB is calming down — perhaps even getting sleepy.

Sometimes its a pain to be a woman — the hormones and emotions just boiling over and spilling out everywhere. It can be overwhelming. I don’t know if this was just hormones, or perhaps a side-effect from the tapering off of my antidepressants (I cut my current dosage in half last week in an effort — and under my doctor’s supervision, btw — to get off the antidepressants all together, taking at least a month or more to do so), or whether the RBM was just due to being so tired after a long and exhausting weekend, allowing emotions to flow more freely and without my usual filters.

It was all just so exhausting, keeping pace with the RB. She, or rather I — because it really is me, just a part of me I don’t like so much — can be a raging lunatic when I’m in that mode. It’s embarrassing, and yet I just did not have the energy today to fight it
off.

Do men have to deal this this kind of stuff? Do you guys find yourselves struggling with
your emotions, or with bad attitudes — days when you are just a "bitch" for lack of a better word? I know my gay friends would have their bitchy days, but then again, they are more in tune with their feminine side than the average man.

What is it with us women, that we have such emotional spill-age??

Sheesh. What a day. I pity the people who found themselves in my path today. All I gotta say is, I’m so glad the day is over and I hope I don’t have a repeat tomorrow (and yeah, I’m in an Emma Thompson/Much Ado About Nothing sort of mood).

Wendy has a great point about Dove’s and Nike’s new campaigns using real women, not the airbrushed stick models. What do we need to do to ensure that this becomes the norm of advertising, instead of the exception?

I love these campaigns! I think it’s so cool to finally see women the way we really look, rather than the way the fashion industry would like us to think we should look like.

I wish someone had been doing advertising like this when I was a teen. Perhaps I wouldn’t have starved myself like I did, or loathed the way I looked because my breasts were so small, my thighs so much bigger and my "Brooks" (my mom’s side of the family) hips and waist were so prominent. —- My mom had the perfect sweater girl figure. But she was a teen back in the 30s and early 40s, when the sweater girl, hour-glass figure was not only appreciated, but idealized. By the time I was a teen, the waif look was in, and waif-girl I am most certainly not.

I’d love to see the profits of Nike and Dove soar in the wake of these new campaigns. In fact, I’ve decided that I’m going to by Dove from now on, to show my support. I know, I’m just one person, and my $2 doesn’t’ really make much of a difference. But I hope that there are other women out there like me who are tired of the messages our culture shoves down our throats on a daily basis that only stick-thin, no-butt, big-boobed women have all the fun, the men and the life worth living. Perhaps if we all add our $2 — or $60+, in the case of Nike — we can make a difference big enough for Wall Street and the fashion industry to sit up and take notice.

Dove even has this cool thing on their website called "Real Beauty", which includes a self-esteem fund to help raise awareness of how body-related self-esteem is affected by the messages young girls receive through today’s media.

So please, go out and buy Dove. Go out and buy Nike. Support these companies who are pioneering a new, better way to advertise their products.