By Abigail Oduol, a Black planned gift fundraiser in California

I don’t want to define myself by what I do, or my performance. I want to instead be. People pursue what my life looks like because capitalism wills us to. It looks like success. Expectations to look like things are working for you are literally chewing people up and spitting them out…

I have a very specific experience:

I’m a Black woman in a cross-cultural marriage. 

I am a planned gift fundraiser who travels for conferences and to meet with supporters. 

I am a high performer. 

At my job, I volunteer to help staff in several ways including a Black staff group, a better workplace committee, and a parenting group.

I have young kids for whom I am the point parent, taking care of meals, sports, school activities, and basic needs. I talk with them about their feelings. I don’t let them watch TV because I don’t have time to help them interpret the messages and racism they are getting from most shows. And I read to them every night, hoping teachers will find it difficult to dismiss their intelligence. I also am trying to teach them a language that I’m not great at so they can relate to their extended family.

I run a small family business managing properties, go to church on Sundays, and try to read and listen to podcasts to broaden how I see the world. 

I meet with my therapist to interrogate how I show up for others and myself. 

I try to move my body and eat nutritious food.   

I speak at conferences and have several volunteer commitments that fulfill personal and professional interests and provide growth opportunities. These activities fill my inspiration bucket and allow me to connect with people in different ways.

People look at these things and say “Wow, what a super woman.” They sigh and say, “Women can have it all. Just try harder, lean in, optimize like Abigail.”

I respond with a smile. They mean well. They’re complimenting me. They think my life is a flex. 

Inside, however, I’m in turmoil. 

I see myself as an honest person and speaking this truth is difficult. I need to tell you all something that has been churning in my heart for some time now: I am not a super woman or mom. I’m not sure they even exist outside of the comic book universes.

No, it’s not imposter syndrome. 

To allow you to believe that I am somehow super, more than or beyond human and that my life should be imitated would be wrong of me. Allowing you to try harder in the belief that you can “have it all” would be irresponsible of me. I feel that I have a duty to other people who are working parents to “tell the truth and shame the devil,” as Granny used to say.

Have you ever heard of those stories of moms lifting cars from their babies to save them because of adrenaline and cortisol working together? But lifting a car off your baby is not exactly something you can do on a regular basis. You can’t make a career out of it. That’s the type of stress that heart attacks are made of.

The truth is that I’m a talented but regular person in a specific set of circumstances that mean I must lift cars off of my family on a regular basis. 

I plan well but the parameters of my life and the ways that people interact with my racial and ethnic identity give me little freedom to fail. I’m running on adrenaline and it’s not healthy or sustainable. I don’t plan on doing it forever. My goal is to be a regular person, period, by 2026.

My cholesterol is high even though I don’t eat any of the usual culprits. I don’t wake up early enough to exercise because I can’t seem to get myself to. No matter how much I sleep, it never feels like enough. My kids still interrupt my sleep, but it isn’t their fault. I have been exhausted since 2020.

I experience happiness, joy, and peace that I believe is only by the mercy of God. 

I don’t yell at my kids. I am somehow not miserable and am miraculously growing in kindness toward others. People frequently mistake my disposition, spiritual health, and relative success as markers that my life should be imitated. They aren’t. And it shouldn’t.

When you say that I’m a super mom or super woman I hear you saying that I’m something different than human. That my humanity and the struggle that my life entails do not really exist. It feels like a pedestal and a dangerous one. I can’t afford to define myself this way. 

When my kid gets sick, or we can’t find childcare coverage during my work trip or I have nightmares all night, I fail, and I am no longer who you thought I was. I’m who I was the whole time–a person doing their best with the resources and responsibilities they have, trying to care for themselves and others given the circumstances. A person with little margin for error. 

I don’t want to define myself by what I do, or my performance. I want to instead be.

People pursue what my life looks like because capitalism wills us to. It looks like success. 

Expectations to look like things are working for you are literally chewing people up and spitting them out. 

We have tried to form communities meant to hold us, but we are afraid to be authentic. We know each other but not well enough to stop us from being scared of what happens when people learn that things aren’t as seamless as they appear.

If you do not have to be in these situations, get out. Don’t be a mommy martyr or a person who secretly believes, “When I die of a heart attack, then they’ll know how hard I tried.” 

Cancel activities. Do only what energizes you if possible. Stop signing up for stuff. Postpone sleep training or potty training or whatever else you’ve been convinced you need to do right now. Get off social media if it’s making you miserable. If you have choices, use them.

I’ve started taking Sundays off from home labor, refusing to do chores, cooking, or planning that day. I cook bigger meals and freeze them so I’m not cooking as much. I deleted my IG and I look at the news every two days. We stopped overnight potty training for one of our kids because it was too stressful when I was already not sleeping well. 

I’ve renegotiated relationships. I also try to choose people over tasks every day. I lean into my CCF work and have deep conversations with supporters and colleagues about how my fundraising work intersects with real life. I’ve realized even my most intense donor trips and conferences feel like breaks—despite the harrowing logistics of pulling them off—so I welcome them.

I’m not a super woman. I am a regular woman who works too hard and does too much. 

I am a woman with an outsized sense of responsibility relative to capacity. 

A woman who most days chooses to be a good mom and employee, an okay volunteer, and a bad wife, and sometimes rebalances these ratios. 

I never have the energy and time to be all these things on the same day and I’ve made peace with that. 

That’s what my life is like right now. 

It’s obstacles, survival, and joy despite it all. 

I am not a super woman. 

But I am Black Girl Magic.