Right now felt like a good time to say,

Thank you.

Thank you for raising me

For knowing me for a year, or a month, or a minute

And shaping me for a lifetime.

For teaching me it’s okay to be angry

And focus my feminist fury

As long as I use that anger for change.

Thank you Ms. Luetje,

For having an impact stretching far beyond the classroom,

For helping me tell the authorities to suck it,

When they didn’t want to accept that change is inevitable,

And will continue with my generation.

Thank you,

For showing me it’s okay to cry

Because all problems are temporary.

Thank you Granny

For surpassing all the men

When they said you couldn’t,

Speaking up to professors instead of staying quiet

For leading your class,

And all of the women at Georgetown

That’s what I aspire to do.

You have shown me to defy the odds

And sometimes authority

For they are the past

Equality and us, we’re the future.

To all the strong women in my life,

I will tell stories about you.

I will put my pen to this paper and document your lessons

Because finding sisters across the world,

Changing their lives and mine,

This is my mission.

Thank you,

The teachers that taught me about myself,

The parents,

And grandparents,

And women on the street

That showed me how to love,

And live,

And shout from the rooftops that I am a woman first and everything else second.

And my friends,

Who have picked me up,

And walked beside me in this fight,

When all I wanted to do was fall.

You are my superheros,

Fighting for more than your rights, you’re helping me fight for mine.

I have molded myself in your image,

Taking bricks of your strength,

Beauty,

Intelligence,

And wit,

To build the fortress that is me.

I am more grateful than you will ever know.

Please keep being you,

It is the greatest gift to this world.