When You Can't Find What You're Looking For

Career

Oct 25

I recently watched CMT Artists of the Year 2018, the first awards show of its kind dedicated to the women of country music. They're consistently underrepresented and have less radio play than their male counterparts. It was encouraging to see a network like CMT finally acknowledge and award women like Loretta Lynn, Miranda Lambert, and Maren Morris to name a few. A commercial for Ram Trucks aired during the event showed fierce women surfing crazy waves, snowboarding mountains, and rehearsing for sold out shows. As a television lover raised in the '90s, I didn't see women represented this way on screen or in music. It was uplifting to see tonight & made me think of all the young girls watching that will know without a doubt they can go after whatever the hell they want. AND they don't have to sacrifice their femininity or softness to do it.

Brave Girl: An archive of my early 20's

I'm telling you this in lieu of my recent switch to this online space that is now under my own name, Emily Bode. I wrote under the pen name, Brave Girl, since 2013. Brave Girl will remain online as an archive of my early 20's. It was the season I needed to go through to get to where I am today as a designer and writer on EMILYBODE.com.

What does this have to do with country music?

Well, watching all these women I admire and listen to their albums, I finally found the words for what Brave Girl has always meant to me. I often said Brave Girl was an aspiration because being brave is very hard when you want to go in a direction that you don't see other people like you doing. I don't mean I never saw anyone like me blogging in the popular sense. Trust me, I know there are more middle-class white girls like me blogging than all the pumpkin spice lattes in the world.

Unwelcomed surprises and good lessons

What I mean is I couldn't find what I was looking for in the creative marketing field in 2013 as a young designer. I saw talented women rise to the top as creative directors but they weren't supportive or kind to other women. The sweetest most creative woman would stop pursuing her dream of a creative hobby or business because she was uncomfortable dreaming bigger.

I witnessed women act like they were supportive while secretly manipulating a fellow female behind the scenes or not standing up for coworkers when the boss came around. Designers who were so uptight in classical training there wasn't any personality or excitement to their work. I saw women doing this & I was a girl emulating their patterns. It surprised me this kind of personality was being taught and accepted. I hated this every-woman-for-herself mentality. It was lonely, isolating, and destructive.

I started Brave Girl because I blamed myself for bringing these experiences on with my attitude or my weaknesses or being inadequate or something. I thought what I witnessed in work settings, at professional events, and in my personal life was all my fault. So the more courage I could have the better to face these monsters, right? Sort of.

The monsters were there, indeed. And other people aren't always kind nor will they care about your dream more than you do. You need to want it so much more than anybody else for it to work. The monsters I was battling? Most of them were my own. And because of my blog Brave Girl, I did find what I was looking for.

Courage requires patience.

Courage to be the woman I am. To dream and know it is a valid dream even if it doesn't look like the "popular" dream. One of the greatest lessons Brave Girl taught me during my time writing under her pen name; an aspiration is the first stage of a dream.

You have to know what you're aspiring to be, want, or do. It is the key to all that follows. I bet some of the women at that awards show can relate. It will turn into everything you want and more if you keep going despite the monsters. Despite the naysayers, in your head and otherwise. I started Brave Girl because I was looking for a woman I couldn't find. So, I became her.

I want every woman to do this for herself. Over & over & over again.

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