Ellie Pomeroy

As Tammy Wynette says in her song, ‘Stand By Your Man,’ “sometimes it’s hard to be a woman.” For as long as I can remember, I have been trying to be a better woman: flowing hair, clear skin, perfect nails, flawless makeup, and an impossibly skinny body. I stare in my bathroom mirror, grabbing my stomach fat and picking at my skin until it bleeds. I am 9 years old. I apply facemask after facemask to try to get my red, blotchy skin to go away. I am 13. I exfoliate and shave every inch of my body just in case I meet a cute guy. I am 15. I apply too much makeup and dress to perfection just so nobody will think I am ‘gross.’ I am 17. These rituals started in elementary school. I was trying to be a better woman before I became one. 

I stand in front of the judges, shaking, as beads of sweat soak my white tank top and black shorts that were far too tight for my liking. I had never seen myself being a cheerleader, but here I was, trying to remember the dance and attempting to sound strong as I called the chant. My feet hit the worn dead mat, faded and stained over the 1,000 years it had seemingly been used. One second, my arms are by my side, an obnoxious smile spread from ear to ear. The next second, I am walking out of the building trying my hardest to find my Mom in a sea of 5’3” white women with short, blonde hair. The next day comes, the day we find out who made it, the day that I would sign a contract to lose myself. 

When we were fitted for our uniforms, they had to bring larger sizes out for me. My worst fears were confirmed; everyone knew that I was bigger than the other girls. I couldn’t let myself stand out like a sore thumb, so I did everything in my power to get rid of the weight. I starved myself and pushed my body to its limits as I worked out on the floor of my bedroom, trying to be silent so that no one would hear. I couldn’t think straight; I was weak and exhausted. I still didn’t fit in; my body looked muscular and out of place next to the stick-thin girls on my team. I was furious that I couldn’t look more like them; I was furious that I couldn’t rearrange my skeleton to get of my broad shoulders and wide hips. Nothing about cheering was good for me, but I was going to do it again. I had to. It was the only way I could fit in. 

I stand on the edge of the trampoline, my heels nearly touching the foam pit I would be landing on. My coaches fingers grazed my back to let me know that my support was there. I took a deep breath in, a mixture of hairspray, cheap Pink perfume, and sweat washing over me as I raised my arms tight by my ears. Sit in a chair, swing your arms back, and go. Sit in a chair, swing your arms back, and go. Sit in a chair, swing your arms back, and go. POP. I landed crooked and uncomfortably, my left elbow skewed at an awkward angle and my right completely straight. 

I looked around, embarrassed, trying to laugh off the pain that was starting to shoot through my left arm. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I was fine. I had to be fine. I got into my mom’s car holding my elbow at a right angle close to my side. I told her was happened and she reassured me that I would be fine, took me to get an ICEE, and told me to straighten it. Unfortunately, Blue Raspberry ICEE’s do not heal torn ligaments. Two weeks later, I was under the knife. 

After my surgery, something shifted in me. I stood around each day and watched my friends at cheer practice, forced to see them do the one thing that made me feel somewhat confident. While I don’t think I ever truly loved the activity of cheerleading, I loved the way it made me feel. The unity I felt on the team, the femininity of it all,  the strength I felt from lifting a 100 lb girl up in the air and tossing her around, and, most of all, how normal it was. My quest for normalcy that I had been on since the day I became conscious had been fulfilled, then taken away in the blink of an eye. By the end of the year, I had come to the conclusion (with the guidance of my therapist and parents) that I had to move schools. I couldn’t feel alone anymore. I couldn’t be surrounded by 3,000 other students and feel like I was stranded on a desert island without food or water. Broken and disheveled, I started a new life. I was back on my journey to find out what kind of person I was going to be. 

My mother stands in her bathroom mirror, analyzing her face to see if she has any new wrinkles. She is 40 years old. She wakes up at 4 am just so she can go on her morning walk before her 10 hour shift at work. She is 43. She goes on her third diet this year, seeing if she can finally lose the weight that she doesn’t actually need to lose. She is 47. She cleans every surface and gardens for hours, just to make sure our house is presentable, even though she is exhausted. She is 52. When I saw my mom hate herself for simply being, I started to do the same. All I wanted was to be like her. I have watched every woman in my life passive-aggressively compete with each other to see who could be the best version of the stereotypical female. Who was the best mother and wife? Who was the most polite? Who dressed the best? Who is the skinniest? The list goes on and on. Nothing they say has malicious intentions. This is the way they were raised. They heard their mothers, their grandmothers, and their great grandmothers criticize themselves and other woman consistently from the moment they were born.  

    These are the ways of being a woman. We have been trained to not feel okay about ourselves from the moment we take our first breath. No one ever teaches you that you don’t have to be anything other than yourself. We live in a constant state of desperation for some sort of validation that we are following the guidelines correctly. We hate and love other women so deeply that it is debilitating. None of it is intentional. All of it is confusing. Every day, I look in the mirror and see that insecure 9-year-old looking back at me, and all I want to do is go back in time and tell her she is perfect. She is loved. She doesn’t need to change herself now; change will come in its own time. 

    I am my own woman now. I won't lie and say I love myself all the time, because I don't. I now realize that being a woman is not one thing. It isn’t starving myself, or doing sit-ups silently in my room, it isn’t even dressing to the nines and wearing pounds of makeup. Being a woman is being honest with yourself, having the strength to make decisions for yourself alone, letting yourself be your own person, and, most importantly, never letting anyone tell you that you don’t fit their description of a woman. Tammy Wynnette is right though. Sometimes (most of the time) it is hard to be a woman.