I’m really passionate about my work. (That likely comes as no surprise.) It’s my soul’s calling to give women a safe space to land so they can consciously create a life that serves them. This is feminism in action on a personal level.

I want women to know that they have the right to want more. They have the freedom to choose the path that lifts them up.

But sometimes, we forget that we have a choice, don’t we? It often doesn’t feel like we have one. Everything feels like it has to get done, and we often put ourselves on the back burner to fit it all in. Before you know it, we’re judging ourselves for not realizing that we have a choice, for not having it all figured out by now, for not having mastered this whole Being A Modern Woman thing. We just keep piling it on. It’s no wonder we don’t feel like we can get out from under!

It can all feel so heavy.

So serious.

So exhausting.

That’s why I was so excited when I received an e-mail from the library letting me know that my hold was ready for pick-up. My coach recommended that I read “How to Be a Woman” by Caitlin Moran, and I am so glad I took her advice. I cannot begin to tell you how hilarious it is! I’ve laughed out loud no less than 20 times so far, and I’m only two-thirds of the way through. Caitlin takes us through her trials and tribulations with such honesty and wit – I simply don’t want to put it down.

In the prologue, she says, “I don’t know if we can talk about ‘waves’ of feminism anymore—by my reckoning, the next wave would be the fifth, and I suspect it’s around the fifth wave that you top referring to individual waves and start to refer, simply, to an incoming tide.”

And I do believe the tide is coming in. Every moment we choose to raise our voice and claim what’s ours, every time we hold the people in our lives to a higher standard of equality, every time we share a laugh with another woman over whatever nonsense is being flung in our general direction today, we are part of the movement.

Being a woman is hard and infuriating and tender and wonderful. Reading this book reminded me that I’m not alone when I feel like I can’t keep up, when I’m raging about the injustice in the world, or when I’m enjoying getting my hair done. Being a woman is a beautiful mess. Caitlin Moran believes that the way to endure it all is to look modern womanhood in the eye, in all its glory, and say, “HA!”

Today, I say HA! to dropping my earring down the drain this morning (and feeling a little less put together without my everyday earrings on), HA! to having a flat tire on my bike and not wanting to change it myself because my manicure is still on point, and HA! to the rage I feel every time someone cat-calls me. How about you?