Natasha

CALIFORNIA, USA

“Having it all” is emancipation from the inner and outer authoritarians we’ve inherited. For decades, this phrase has been reduced to a basic and often rhetorical question: can women really have it all? The answer, on the whole, has been “no.” Not at its extreme cost: the steepness of the grade is absurd, and the pace relentless. The burn rate of the feminine is dangerously swift and barely acknowledged.

Having it, all is recognizing that our ambition packs intrinsic empathy, altruism, and nurturance; that when women win, everyone wins. Having it all means remediation for the burdensome levy of patriarchy, a net negative yet applied with fervor. It means caring for the caregivers – at long last.

At this moment, having it all means radical rest – daring to do less and receive more. More support, more encouragement, more money, more opportunity, more respect, more time. Society loses when women have to fight so hard to do what is human – discover who we are and actualize the piercing vastness of our voices.

Having it all means the support of the “village” as a fully blossomed community of practice. It's the expectation that we will compose and re-compose our lives, evolving, enjoying every powerful swing of the pendulum that guides us to the next iteration of ourselves – without pretense or apology.

Having it all is an open invitation to the audition and a seat on the bench when it’s time to recover. No questions asked. It’s un-learning and un-patterning at scale. It’s a homecoming to interdependence; it's the safety to unfurl and the courage to re-wild. It’s relentless optimism and full-saturation presence.

Having it all asks that we be all in on ourselves. And on lifting the 51% around us, whose shoulders are our very own.