I will never be delicate.

"Some women are lost in the Fire, others are built from it." 

-Michelle K.

I am not delicate nor have I ever been, this was a great source of discomfort and displeasure in my young adolescence. Growing up I was certain that in order to be feminine you had to be delicate... in like every aspect of your life, your character, your laugh, your intelligence, your freaking body, all had to be delicate in order for you to be considered feminine and desirable by guys. That thought process is completely absurd and being older now allows me to see that, but those thoughts had to come from somewhere.
So I thought back over every movie I watched, and every life lesson I know, only to find that growing up as a little girl society told me to be delicate. All of my princesses were completely helpless before their prince arrived to save them, I had watched The Princess Diaries enough times to know "how a princess should act", I knew all the lessons by heart and still I wasn't delicate. I raked my brain thinking about how I had somehow missed the applying portion of my learned lessons and was brought to the conclusion that I was not and could not ever be delicate because of my mother.
My mom is not and never has been a delicate woman, in fact she is kind of the scariest woman alive and I love her for that. Growing up my mother always told me I didn't have to be a "sissy" she told me that I could do and be whoever I wanted to be. One of my favorite memories is my mom telling me how her and her best friend spent countless hours coming up with not only the perfect name for me, but how to spell my name so it would stand out against everyone else's. From the womb my mother built me to be completely unique in this life, to be independent, and almost more importantly she built me to be strong. So I was strong, I sent my mother into labor early, and I was cut from her womb in her first C-section. When my mother held me for the first time? She lifted me into the air like Simba and said to me:

"You will be my strength." 

Then my mother held me close to her heart where I have lived ever since.
What an astounding testament to the absolute supremacy that is my mother. I could stop writing there, my mother is supreme Queen and light of my life, and her dedication moves my heart to awe. She bought me dolls until she saw I was more interested in brain teasers, she let me take ballet, tap, aikido, try softball, and she was not mad when she learned that I felt most comfortable in an All American Girls book club. My mother taught me how to ride a bike and did not let my bleeding scraped knees stop me from learning, my mother did not let my passive nature mold me into someone who is easily trampled over. My mom didn't get to grow up with her mom, and for the things she felt she didn't know how to teach me she found a way for me to learn, usually by dragging me to many an embarrassing seminar so we both could learn about being a girl, a young lady, and eventually a woman. When I moved out on my own my mother signed us up for a self defense class. My mother built me to be strong, and I think sometimes when I come home with a new tattoo,  and new story about who's pissing me off, or where I am running off to for X amount of time next, she tiredly, and smugly, regrets her decision.

So I am not delicate, and I probably never will be, but this doesn't bother me anymore. I am not the kind of woman who is docile and passive, I am not an easy pill to swallow. I am wild, I am loud, I am passionate, I am angry, I am direct, I kick ass, and I sure as hell am not waiting for my story to start when someone decides to rescue me. I have taken my life by the gut, I have lumped its weight on my back, and I have not been crushed.
I can't be crushed because I am not delicate, I am strong.
I am strong like my mother, and thank God for that.