Lady Uppity had spent years looking for the key.
She searched for it in books, workshops, relationships, and the opinions of people she wasn’t even sure she liked.
Surely, someone somewhere held the key to the life she longed for.
No wonder she was exhausted.
As a young girl, Lady Uppity struggled in school. Written words were almost always confusing. Reading—especially out loud—was humiliating. They labeled her slow and sent her to summer school.
Years later, she learned that she was dyslexic.
Then something unexpected happened.
When she got to high school, she discovered higher math. Algebra set something within her on fire.
Numbers became a mystery to solve, and Lady Uppity loved solving mysteries.
Enter her stepfather, a scientist and a firm believer that there was a place for girls—and it wasn’t at the same table as men.
“Boys don’t like smart girls,” he repeated ad nauseam.
“College is for guys,” he insisted.
He suggested that she enroll in secretarial school, where she could learn to type, take shorthand, and fetch coffee for her future boss.
Men wanted a smart woman, he explained, but a smart woman understood her place.
Of course, this conditioning started long before high school.
When she was about five years old, the preacher at her grandmother’s church smiled, patted her on the head, and said, “Remember, be nice because nice little girls go to heaven.”
And, naturally, he reminded everyone that the alternative to heaven was a not-so-nice place ruled by a not-so-nice fellow.
So there it was—the beginning of her sweet little cage.
Be nice.
Be agreeable.
Be grateful.
Be careful.
Be less than you are.
Now, all these years later, as Lady Uppity settles into her Room of Her Own Damn Mind, she finds herself looking around and slowly becoming aware of that cage.
She first caught a glimpse of it while working at a center for victims of domestic violence. The center had assembled resources to help women leave dangerous situations and begin again.
What surprised her was that many chose to return.
Why?
Because that life, however painful, was familiar. Leaving meant stepping into the great unknown, and the unknown can be terrifying.
At the center, they could offer a key.
What they could not offer was certainty about what lay beyond the door.
Now, sitting with her pups and a cup of tea, gazing out the window, Lady Uppity understood something she had missed all those years.
She had spent most of her life searching for a key.
But perhaps the key was never the issue.
The women at the shelter had keys.
The center offered keys.
Lady Uppity had collected keys from books, teachers, workshops, and hard-earned wisdom.
The problem was never the key.
The problem was trusting herself enough to walk through the door.
For years, she believed she was waiting for permission.
Now she wondered if she had been waiting for courage.
The thought was both terrifying and exhilarating.
Because if the door had been open all along, then nobody was standing in her way.
The next step was hers.