Sunshine Fire
Illustration by Victoria Doudoumis.
Like a lot of other womxn, I’ve always felt the need to apologize for things I shouldn’t be sorry for, or to be smaller so someone else can have their space. I’d quietly succeed in subjects while someone else took the credit.
While the details don’t necessarily matter in this scenario, essentially someone told me that I had “upstaged” him during a conversation about how we all did on a presentation. My immediate reaction was to apologize, before even considering whether or not I was actually sorry.
Was I sorry that I got a higher grade? Was it my fault that he felt small because I did better? Being humble is one thing, but not acknowledging your own wins for the sake of someone else’s jealousy is not a weight that you need to carry. Real friends should never see your success as competition. Celebrate yourself, because no one is going to do it for you.
