Resolutions

Hi, its Chav.

It’s been a while, I won’t apologize because I am trying to stop that habit of apologizing unnecessarily…sorry, the house isn’t clean; sorry, I didn’t feel like getting dressed today; sorry, we are having cereal for dinner; sorry, I'll have to be a little later; sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry…

We are adults, and well, I imagine your lives have been equally as full as mine. Although to say life has been 'full' would be an understatement, but for better or worse, it has been a while since I was capable of sitting down and writing it all out.

A couple months ago, my husband and I had our first social invitation following our last lockdown, it was a wedding of a close friend and I personally was as equally excited as I was terrified about hanging out with a hundred people or so. Maybe because of this I was functioning in a heightened state of adrenaline, my fight or flight response was very much in action, but I went to a place of deep insecurity that I haven’t experienced since I was a teenager. It was triggered by some very cool, friendly and beautiful female attention on the dance floor- I didn’t enjoy the invasive nature of it and I didn’t trust why I was getting it. For no clear or logical reason I was suddenly doubting every woman’s attention against a mean girl lens. It wasn’t fair, but I came across one of the women again a short time later and she was still so generous with her compliments and again I found myself doubting her intention. I understand it’s my issue, my self- esteem issues, there is no reason to believe there was anything but generosity and kindness.

But it made me think back, think forward, and something that I keep coming back to is the relationship that we women form, with each other, with ourselves, with our families, in so many scenarios they started tainted, marred by an internal misogyny that comes from being born into a patriarchal society. A heated competitiveness from birth, a directed trajectory that withholds so much potential and opportunity. It’s tragic really. More tragic however is that while some of us may be privileged enough to recognize that fact and evolve beyond it, there are women worldwide who will never get even the opportunity to fathom or manifest a future in which they can resolve to be whoever they truly are or want to be, let alone live it.

As we saw the pullout of Americans from Afghanistan in Septmeber 2021 it coincidently fell on what would be the ninth anniversary of Malala’s shooting- we shared Malala’s newest diary entry on the anniversary. Soon thereafter, Malala announced her engagement to her soon to be husband- unimaginable possibility for a young girl under Taliban rule a decade ago, to recover, to arrive abroad, to receive an education, achieve the professional heights of which she is currently and to meet a person in which she shares the values of and is free to build a family together.

This is the power of womanhood, storytelling, sharing, and magic; this is how we build each other up. This is what we were manifesting when we conceived of Wrapt, a platform in which we can rebuild ourselves, so that we might help to build each other up, learn from each other, create a safe space to regenerate, concede when we are down, and celebrate when we are up. This is evidenced by our newest contribution, writer Rashika’s love letter to her mother in law , a homage to the magic of women’s unity and friendship. 

And as we, the team of Wrapt, stare down the barrel of yet another year past, we can't help but ask ourselves, how is it going? Honestly, not great; intentionality is one thing, follow-through is another. I guess this is my concession, we started at a height of 5000+ people traffic a month and growing, due to some of the Wrapt fam moving on or refocusing, together with life in general and Covid-9, like everyone else, packed a punch or two, we are down to 1000 people or less a month with little energy or cash flow to grow. I recognize that in the absence of ongoing investors we should have financially invested in ourselves. Still, at the time, we were hoping our time and energy was enough, it wasn’t; it hasn't been. It is what it is. Even as I concede this fact, I will say honestly I regret nothing, because we only grew through this process, there was no real loss- we shared your stories, we shared our own, we learnt, we grew, we gave our time to build something new, with potential, even if only short-lived and we built a community that served us when we needed it most.

We are trying to figure out if we will keep going; we will reassess in the new year and we will let you know.

We hope 2022 gives you everything you need it to.