Women In My Life

I have been working from home and been in isolation for three weeks now. Not that I ever need a reason to overthink and analyze my life, but these unique turn of events has made it rather easy and inevitable to ponder and wonder. Thankfully, I am staying sane and my thoughts are more-often-than-not filled with gratitude and love for life.

Last week I watched two Hindi-movies (Indian) - Chhapaak & Panga both of which are stories about women and their struggles and how they choose to move forward through perseverance, determination and unwavering positive outlook. Another thing I found common between both movies was the supportive female sisterhood both protagonists found in their friends, neighbors and strangers. While pondering about these movies, I realized that I had not grown up watching this healthy dose of female bonding on cinema (or even in books). Women were mostly shown as envious, vicious creatures or even outright enemies if they happen to want the same things in life. Their characters were always written to undermine each other's successes or to tear each other up. Of course I didn't know it back then but that was forming my view of my own gender.

All this pondering eventually got me thinking about my own life. As a regular reader you might know I am an introverted-extrovert. I have a small circle of people around me. I choose to live in my own little bubble, stepping out intermittently to only jump right-back-in to renew the lost energy. I am an extremely private person. I like to share when I am ready and willing. Often only once I have fully lived the moment and have processed it and am ready to let go. I bore you with these characteristics about myself only to emphasis the wonder and gratefulness I feel when women around me take the time to reach out, and be helpful and often get me out of my funk, albeit unknowingly, but the impact of their action makes me feel valued and connected to them. 

There are a LOT OF examples I can share with you from over the years of all the women who has been there for me in most unexpected times, but because that will take months to write, I am sharing a few just from the last few weeks - For the first several weeks of this god-awful-year I was not feeling the love for blogging AT ALL. I had not shot a single outfit post or collaborated with anyone ... then one-fine-day Alison asked me if I'd like to be part of this project, and just like that I started finding joy in outfit posts again. This whole COVID situation was not helping my creativity and I was not in the mood for creating anything new and then Flo my podcast partner (and friend!) asked if I'd like "to do an IGTV series and share 'One Good Thing' to watch and read every week?" and now I am excited about creating content again. Then just last week my most favorite person in D.C. - Rosana - asked me to be a part of a project and suddenly I forgot everything about the world we are currently living in and got consumed with being part of this fun collaboration. 

I guess, the point I am trying to make today is that even though movies and books and didn't do a great job of showing women-supporting-women in late 80s and 90s I have come to believe in the power of sisterhood. The love and support each of them (virtual strangers included) has shown over the years has shaped me who I am as a person today. It wasn't something I grew up knowing, but it is definitely something I have come to appreciate in loads and I am so thankful to all the women in my life.

Photography By Hafsa

Back in February I did a fun shoot with another awesome woman I met this year - Hafsa We had so much fun. We can't wait to shoot again post Covid-19. 
Check out her work on Instagram page here.

Location - Union Market, Washington D.C.

Bodysuit | Jeans | Shoes | Bag | Stole