Why being an “Independent” woman, doesn’t mean you have to be alone.

If there’s one thing I learned in high school and my first two years of college it is that you will always need people. We hear about the independent woman all the time. In books, in magazines, in leading roles on TV. It’s become a sort of an American ideal. The idea that a woman does not need to rely on others. She can be successful without the help of others. She doesn’t need (or want) a female support system. She can work her way to the top without having someone behind her to catch her if she falls. But what happens when she does fall?

For a while, I had convinced myself that I was fine being alone. That I didn’t need anyone’s help for anything. I’m a strong-independent woman who don’t need no man, no mentor, no support group, etc. I can remember a time, when one of my best friends was ashamed of our friendship. Was ashamed that other people saw us as a package deal. She didn’t want my name tied to hers. We were the type of friends who did everything together. The type of friends that when people talked about us it was “insert name & another name”. When she brought this up, I remember thinking “So what?” Isn’t that okay? Of course, I get where she was coming from. She wanted her own identity. But I don’t think people meant that they thought of me as part of her identity or that they thought of her as part of mine. I felt proud to be her friend. Proud people knew we depended on each other to make it through life.

My favorite line from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem Ulysses, “I am a part of all that I have met”, comes to mind here. As you go through life, you meet places and experiences...but most importantly, people. Those people become a part of you. It’s okay to need people.

And you are going to depend on them. You’re going to depend on them when your boyfriend/girlfriend breaks up with you and you can’t breathe. You’re going to depend on them when you’re writing an essay at 1am in the morning and still need someone to proofread. You’re going to depend on them when you get your dream job and you need someone to feel your excitement/nervousness as you scream through the phone. You’re going to depend on them when you go through weird obsessions or fashion trends. You’re going to depend on them when your loved one dies and your world stops moving. You’re going to depend on them when everything is right and everything is wrong. If you get caught up on the idea of being independent of being a modern day self-made (wo)man, you’ll lose sight of this.

It’s so important as a 20-something year old facing a great big beautiful tomorrow to have other people, especially other women (GIRL POWER, you know?). Life is tough enough to go through it without your person, your people. If you are, you’re not fully living.

It’s okay to need people. It’s okay to need help or not need help. It’s in the knowing that people are there, there to share your stresses and your successes, that is vital.

One of my favorite quotes, by Jamie Tworkowski, which can be found in his book If You Feel Too Much, is a quote that has became my let’s-get-through-this, let’s-get-stuff-done, mantra for life.

“You’ll need coffee shops and sunsets and road trips. Airplanes and passports and new songs and old songs, but people more than anything else. You will need other people and you will need to be that other person to someone else, a living breathing screaming invitation to believe better things.”

― Jamie Tworkowski