Inspiration to Reach Out

Today we are featured on Melanie Meditates.

As our humble editor-in-chief is not a Mommy Blogger, so to speak, although she is and always will be a mommy and a blogger, how did she end up featured on the blog of a 29 year old mom?  Glad you asked.
Living our lives fully and one moment at a time in order to maximize our participate in life and thus the influence that is our legacy is unbounded by age.  Women especially need to know that it is fine to live in the moment and admit that moments can be difficult, very difficult.
As editor and publisher of this site, I decided I needed to reach out regionally to women writers as well as to the national and local networks in which I already participate to a small degree.  So I decided to participate more fully in some Facebook groups.
Melanie needed a break from creating researched posts every day, which is a huge task by the way, and asked for contributors for a quotes that are inspirational to us, read self-care, and help her take and illustrate the concept of a mental health break.
“Genius,” I thought.
I wanted to support her.  Being a severe depression surviver myself, I openly talk about mental health, and about my mental health, and how it is something we create through medical care and self care and doing what we need to do in the moment.  I am not so sure I could have been as open about it at Melanie’s age; I know I was not.
So, I submitted the quote that has gotten me through many a bad day.  It is a line from a Walt Whitman poem,

“Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then; I contradict myself .  I am large – I contain multitudes.”

Why does this quote mean so much to me?  Because:

• Women do so much; so very much.
• Contradiction is inevitable if you live a rich life.
• There is a lot of pressure in the world to conform and to be consistent.
• The world judges and often we attempt to hide aspects of our selves that might be judged.
• It encourages self-acceptance.
• It celebrates complexity.
• Walt Whitman.  I mean really, it is Walt Whitman.
• It helped me survive some rather dark periods.

Women should help each other.  Women of all ages.  We need to support other women, each other; it is give and take.   Learning about other women’s lives, the reality not the façade, helps us all and takes place through interaction with women of all sizes, shapes, colors, ages, religions, nationalities, and political persuasions.
So here is to Melanie!  What an inspiration.  She is living a great legacy and probably had some support along the way from other women who lived their legacies loud and proud.