This might sound a little bit conflicting but I believe more in "girl power" since I've met Bryce than I ever did before. I think theoretically I believed in girl power, and I probably talked about it just as much. But I wasn't necessarily applying my beliefs or living them either.
Before I met Bryce, I was planning my life around a career with a whole long list of backup plans "just in case" I couldn't get my graduate degree. As if someone was going to decide I couldn't get it, or it wasn't worth the money for a stay at home mom to also be a doctor. A year ago, I went on dates and wasn't confident enough in my "girl power" to tell a guy I just wasn't interested without feeling like I needed to supply another explanation. Last September, I didn't think "No." could go without an explanation. A year ago all my feelings about who I was and what I deserved were just good thoughts, but only some of it equated action.
I was thinking like a powerful woman, but I wasn't living like one. I had all these ideas about what I wanted or how I should be treated, and I definitely would have told you about them if you asked, but I wasn't living up to those beliefs.
Enter in Fall semester 2013, which I like to think of as the start of the hugest year of my life. Bryce didn't just tell me how he thought of me, he showed me.
I learned that women's issues really are everyone's issues when Bryce signed up to run a 5K with me to speak out against victims of sexual abuse.
I learned that my ability to say "No" really meant something when Bryce held my hand for the first time and I told him I wasn't sure how I felt about it, so he never did it again (until I initiated of course).
I realized I had the power to act when I initiated our first kiss.
I felt like someone who was worth respecting when he referred to me as "his president" to our friends (I was the president of the club on campus where we met).
I understood I wasn't the only one who thought of us as equals when he said he "loves that we're the same height because it reminds me how equal we are".
I felt empowered when someone told me "you might not get to go to grad school" as if I was hoping to be some special exception, but Bryce said the time and the debt and efforts he made was worth it to him as if I was the rule; "Of course you'll go to medical school!". And he has never questioned me since, asked if that's what I really want, or checked to make sure I've thought and prayed about it. Because he knows of course I have.
Bryce reminds me everyday what "girl power" really is when he comes home and tells me he loves to brag about his wife getting into optometry school. When he switches the laundry, does the grocery shopping so I can study, and when he jokingly tells me "don't you dare do the dishes, they're mine!". When I'm in the middle of cooking dinner and he tells me to get out the door and go for a run, because he'll finish up and he can tell I need a break. He's taught me to say what I need and not be afraid to ask for it. He's taught me to stop saying "Sorry for asking" and start saying "Thanks for helping me!". I'm not just his little wife, and I like that.
I guess that makes me a feminist, and while three years ago I would have turned away from the thought, now you can say I'm embracing it. I'm not just thinking the part, I'm acting on it too.
Ultimately I realized that the perfect man wasn't perfect because he brought me flowers every day and did everything I said, but because he saw me as the powerful woman I wanted so desperately to be even when I didn't know how to get there. Bryce pushes me everyday to be the strong woman that I choose to be, to break the mold, and be a better person. I'm excited for when we have daughters, to teach them together that they can do an be anything they want. To tell them that I met their Dad while I was pursuing my dreams and he was pursing his. For Bryce and I to show them together what it means to work together and be equal. We're not going to just tell them they are pwoerful, we are going to show them. And for them to see their Dad embrace every aspect of their girl power (even if that means rocking out to Taylor Swift in the car and going to dance team competitions like my Dad did for me).
