by Michael Reid
DEAR WOMAN
WRITTEN BY: MICHAEL E. REID
EDITED BY: MELONI C. WILLIAMS
Published by: Dreams On Paper Entertainment Publishing
www.dopepublishing.com
THIS BOOK BELONGS TO:___________________________
Dear Woman,
This is YOUR book.
With it, comes the responsibility to be a better woman.
Also a better friend, better daughter, better mother, better wife.
Not everything will apply.
What does: take with you for the rest of your life.
What doesn’t: make sure it never will.
This book comes with an obligation—
An obligation to not only be a better woman,
but also to build better women around you.
Do not take this duty lightly.
One day, your daughter will need friends.
Someday, your son will need a wife.
The best way to make sure they have the best opportunity to find beautiful women is for you to do your part in helping to build them.
May these words bring you great pleasure, great peace and great hope.
Respectfully,
Michael E. Reid
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO EVERY WOMAN I HAVE EVER MET.
SOME FOR MINUTES, SOME FOR MONTHS, SOME FOREVER.
I LISTENED. I THOUGHT. I WROTE.
“NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES THE WORLD CHANGES WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A WOMAN, YOU NEVER STOP BEING A WOMAN IN IT.”
Contents
PREFACE
DEDICATION
“IN THE BEGINNING . . .”
DEAR WOMAN,
“THE CROWN . . .”
“SETTING THE TABLE . . .”
DEAR WOMAN,
“THE SKIN YOU’RE IN . . .”
DEAR WOMAN,
“DADDY . . .”
DEAR WOMAN,
“3RD PART OF LIFE . . .”
DEAR WOMAN,
“TWO”
DEAR WOMAN,
“FOR BETTER OR WORSE”
DEAR WOMAN,
“COLORS”
DEAR WOMAN,
“RESPONSIBILITY”
DEAR WOMAN,
“LOST”
DEAR WOMAN,
“PROGRESS REPORT”
DEAR WOMAN,
“GO HOME”
DEAR WOMAN,
“POISON”
DEAR WOMAN,
“WHO’S DRIVING?”
DEAR WOMAN,
DEAR WOMAN,
“HOLES IN YOUR ARMOR”
DEAR WOMAN,
“TRAPPED IN PARADISE”
DEAR WOMAN,
DEAR WOMAN,
DEAR WOMAN,
“FUEL”
DEAR WOMAN,
“THE DRAG”
DEAR WOMAN,
“RAINBOWS”
DEAR WOMAN,
DEAR WOMAN,
DEAR WOMAN,
“RESTAURANT WEEK”
DEAR WOMAN,
“NEW GENERATION, NEW WOMAN”
DEAR WOMAN,
“NOT GOOD ENOUGH? IMPOSSIBLE!”
DEAR WOMAN,
“BOYFRIEND BY COMMITTEE”
DEAR WOMAN,
“MOMMY’S BABY”
DEAR WOMAN,
DEAR WOMAN,
“THE GREAT WALL”
DEAR WOMAN,
“AFTER KATRINA”
DEAR WOMAN,
DEAR WOMAN,
“REFLECTIONS”
DEAR WOMAN,
DEAR WOMAN,
“SAVE SOME FOR THE GOOD GUY”
DEAR WOMAN,
DEAR WOMAN,
DEAR WOMAN,
DEAR WOMAN,
DEAR WOMAN,
DEAR WOMAN,
DEAR WOMAN,
DEAR WOMAN,
Thank You.
Keep in Touch.
What’s to Come . . .
“IN THE BEGINNING . . .”
“From the moment she was born, the one title that could never be taken away from her was “Woman.” It would be her first gift from the world and also her largest cross to bear.”
Every time a child is born, it is a gift. It is a sign that God has not given up on the world. A sign that life must and most certainly will continue. When God decides to make that child a woman, the gift becomes even more special—special because women at their core are the guardians of our existence, the facilitators of life and the rawest example of pure, unmanufactured, unadulterated beauty that we have the pleasure of encountering in the entire universe. As deep as it may sound, it is most certainly a true statement.
This beauty is displayed in many different ways. From a woman’s shape, to the way she feels, her physical features, mental capacity and most certainly her emotional superiority. A woman is the world’s most prized possession and must be treated as such. While this is a job that can only be achieved by women accepting and perpetuating the challenge—and men acknowledging it—the foundation must be laid from within.
“It is imperative that all women understand that no one, man or woman, can accurately love you, until you love yourself first and more importantly, love yourself most.”
Being a woman is an opportunity to be fearless and feminine, brave and beautiful, strong and sensitive. All at once. As a woman, you have the power to be both the target and the missile in almost any situation or environment.
We live in a world that puts women first and last. Historically, men have always treated women as their subordinate. The irony here is that the share of decisions men make, both long range and day to day, are in some way, shape or form, subconsciously or knowingly, for women. The million-dollar question is why? I’ll get to that. For now, understand this:
Whether it be for their mother, the woman they desire, the woman they have or the woman they bring into the world themselves—the cars men drive, the clothes men wear, a man’s physical appearance, their desire for social status and just about anything else a man does are almost all done to impress some woman. That’s not up for debate. This gives a woman the opportunity to achieve the upper hand in almost any situation where her femininity is matched by a male presence.
But women please note: with great power, comes great responsibility. A responsibility to yourself, a responsibility to the world, a responsibility to your world—and everything you let in it. This a responsibility for you to protect yourself from anything that threatens your happiness, challenges your womanhood or attempts to make you feel like you have to be someone different than who you are. Period.
DEAR WOMAN,
Before you were anything
You were a woman.
Before friend . . .
Before lover . . .
Before girlfriend, partner, wife or other . . .
You were woman.
Let no title,
whether it be manufactured by society
to define your existence in the world,
allow you to change whom you permit in your world.
The title of ‘woman’ came before,
will never change during,
and most certainly will remain after.
You must never lose that title while in search for
or trying to maintain any other.
“Woman” is the crown
The titles are merely jewels.
“THE CROWN . . .”
“In a perfect world, a woman receives her crown from her father, and her mother shows her how it is to be worn.”
As a woman grows, she becomes more exposed to the world: to its rawness, its realness, its beauty, its pain. Along the way, she learns how to be a woman in that world. In a perfect a world, this is done at home. By watching her mother and father work together and raise their young
woman. Letting the love they have for each other set the example for how she is to be treated.
In a perfect world, how a woman learns to be a woman, is by first observing how her father treats her mother. This is followed by how her mother reacts and subsequently reciprocates that love, attention, respect, and admiration back to him. If done correctly, a young woman will get a bird’s eye view as to what love means, what respect looks like and would have most of the necessary tools to prepare her for the real world.
Sounds good, right? The truth of the matter is that, sometimes, our world is not so perfect. Many of us live in what society calls “broken” homes. I am not a fan of labeling these homes as broken because whether we realize it or not, sometimes subconsciously our mind accepts these terms in a negative way. Sometimes they may cause us to feel guilt or shame about our family structure. While some young women may be wise enough to understand, some may not. Even if one child develops insecurity or self-worth issues because of a label she had nothing to do with creating, we have a problem.
“The last thing you want from a child, especially a woman child, is for her to begin life believing that she is broken or that’s she is a product of something that was broken, especially when the break happened well before her arrival.”
Since we’re not using broken, I would argue to call these situations alternative homes. Nonetheless, many women have not had, do not have, and unfortunately will not have the opportunity to witness both of their parents in the home, laying the foundation of how she is to act and be treated. There are many reasons why this doesn’t get to happen. It could be anything from death and divorce to a change of heart. In any event, the person who hurts most is the child. My heart goes out to each and every one of you.
If no else has yet, let me apologize on behalf of those responsible for you falling victim to this unfortunate circumstance. Furthermore, I’m here to tell you that while it is indeed unfortunate, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, there is light in the tunnel.
1. Understand that it is not your fault. The same way having children doesn’t bring families together, it doesn’t tear them apart either. No matter what you think or how you feel, they did not work because of them—not you.
2. You are not alone! While your path to the crown is not ideal, it is most certainly still possible to achieve and actually pretty common. The solution being, you may just have to give yourself your own crown, and teach yourself how to wear it. Hey, look on the bright side, at least you’ll know it fits!
3. There is a lesson in even the saddest of situations. Nobody else can set a better standard for how you can be treated than you. As much as you can learn by watching a family that did work, you can learn by being a part of one that didn’t.
Hopefully you feel a little better about yourself, but you’re still not done. Actually, you’re just beginning. So what is to be done? First, be thankful. Thankful for what you do have and who you have it with—whether it’s a mother, father, grandparent, guardian, older sibling, sometimes even a complete stranger. Regardless of how much better you think they could have been to you or how much of a more “comfortable” lifestyle you think you could have had, there are 400,000 children in foster care or up for adoption right now because someone decided that they weren’t even worth trying to raise.
As a woman, you have to understand that this world is not fair, and no one in it owes you anything, not even your parents. As you grow into a woman, you’ll learn that the people who have titles in your life are sometimes the ones who hurt you the most. You’ll also learn that everybody who’s supposed to care doesn’t. So what do you do with that? You can either let it break you, or let it make you. The choice is yours.
Now about that crown . . . want to know a secret? It’s already there. It’s just waiting for you to put it on. It’s waiting for you to look in the mirror and say my home may have been “broken,” but I am whole. It’s waiting for you to say that you can’t change your past, but you’re ready to take full responsibility for your future. I think we would all love to witness real love at home as children. Of course it’s a beautiful thing to be brought up in an environment where you get to witness people in love first hand, all day, every day. When it’s done correctly, it’s obvious that it makes you want to duplicate it in your own family in the future. However, sometimes it doesn’t work like that.
Sometimes you’ll learn how to wear your crown by watching how your mother doesn’t always wear hers. Sometimes you’ll discover how you want to be treated by witnessing how your mother is mistreated.
You’ll see how important it is to find somebody who wants a family before you two start doing things that make families, since you’ll have witnessed how hard it was on your mother doing it alone. You might be in a situation where your father is the one giving you your crown and telling you how to wear it. It might be a situation where your mother isn’t even able to give you yours because she’s still waiting for someone to give her hers.
There might be other things going on within your family that I haven’t mentioned here. Every woman’s situation is different, and no woman’s situation is perfect. So this is what you do, you work harder. You take it upon yourself to accept what you cannot change and use it as fuel to make it anyway. You take a hard look at what was wrong with your family life, where you’re parents fell short and use it. Not being able to witness the crown at home is not a handicap unless you make it one. At the end of the day, regardless of where you were raised, who you were raised by and who stood around watching you and chose not to help, you have the responsibility to yourself, above anyone or anything else to be the best woman you can possibly be.
You have a duty to go and get your crown, place it on your own head and keep moving. It’s the only way. Otherwise, you’re going to sell yourself short. You’re going to start questioning your worth because no ever told you that you were priceless. You’re going to start giving people discounts because part of you will feel like you’ve been alone your entire life. So the first chance you get, you’ll let someone in, not realizing that some men may not be interested in you because they see your crown, but they will be interested because they see that you don’t have one.
Go and get your crown.
THE MORE SHE FOUND HERSELF, THE LESS SHE FELT THE NEED TO FIND A MAN THAT MADE HER FEEL LIKE SHE WAS WORTHY. A MAN’S JOB IS NOT TO GIVE A WOMAN HER CROWN. IT IS ONLY THEIR JOB TO RESPECT IT.
(Sign)
“SETTING THE TABLE . . .”
“A woman’s first line of defense is her standards. They are the bar by which she differentiates who is even worth her time. How will you ever know how much work a person is willing to put in, if you don’t require any in the first place?”
Let’s face it, no matter how low you set your standards, not matter how much you’re willing to compromise, there are always going to be people who feel like it is still too much work. It will have you questioning everything about yourself and almost nothing about them. You will start second guessing everything that you thought you had figured out—from what you require to what you will and will not accept. This is a mistake.
“Love is an unfiltered ocean. Your standards are like the purifier that you use to weed out the things that can be harmful to you. The smaller the holes, or the more detailed you are about the standards you have, the more contaminants you remove and the more people you can eliminate.”
There are different levels to finding yourself. One of which is finding people that complement you. This is sometimes seen as the hardest of all levels because it usually takes the longest, and sometimes we feel like this is the level we have the least control over. The key is to not dwell on it so much. Many people look at this level like it’s some sort of competition. It isn’t. Some people feel like if they don’t have a line around the corner of candidates waiting to take a seat at their table, then somehow there must be something wrong with their product or establishment. This is not always true. Sometimes people draw crowds b
ecause of popularity, which isn’t always good. Sometimes people draw crowds because they are giving something away. This is even worse.
It’s not about how many people want to wait in line, or how many people are interested in sitting down at the table with you. It’s about you. It’s about who you open your doors to; it’s about who you feel comfortable enough sitting down at the table with; it’s about who you are willing to feed, with your time, energy, attention and love. You will make out better in the long run. I promise you. The saying, “Quality over Quantity,” applies so much here. Do you want to be seen as a fast food chain or a five star restaurant? Truth be told, it all depends on how you feel about the product you are serving.
The first thing you must focus on doing is setting the table. Setting your table can be as simple as making it perfectly clear to whomever desires a seat: what is on the menu and what is not. The clearer you make this in the beginning, the fewer problems you’ll have in the end. Where a lot of people go wrong is offering people things that aren’t necessarily on their menu. If this happens, you’ll find yourself bending over backwards trying to please people in ways that you aren’t comfortable with. Pretty soon you’ll get tired of doing that. Then who do you blame? Be careful what you offer. Set your table, and make sure the menu is in ink, not pencil.
Keep in mind that you must be fair and firm. Fair because when you set the table, the standard of the person you require should be equal to the type of service they receive. You can’t expect a man to wear a suit jacket to a restaurant where the hostess is wearing jeans and a t-shirt, right? So make sure you embody the same standards you require.
As far as firm goes, this is where a lot of people go wrong. A lot of times, we meet someone, and they’re close. Other times, we just think they’re close. Know the difference. Remember, it’s one thing having a bar that bends, but it’s completely different to have one that moves up and down. If you set your table and develop your list of things you won’t tolerate, cool. Then you have to compose another list which allows you to decide who’s even worth sitting down at your table. Now you’re in good shape; don’t mess that up. Next, and most importantly, watch out for those that slip through the cracks. That’s when you need to pull out the firm. The firm is what’s going to stop you from falling for the “best so far” or the “first decent one in a while.” While this might seem like a short term victory, ultimately you could be making a long term mistake.