My Idol

Since I was a little girl, people always asked me who my idol was. I never really had an answer for that. As I was embarking on my womanhood journey I started to observe all the women around me, wondering how they get through the day.

After my first minor heartbreak I looked at the divorced woman whom I judged to be weak after her husband cheated on her and realized how strong she was to be able to pick herself up and proceed. After my first period cramps I looked at my great grandmother who had 18 children, 9 of which died, and was astonished by the fact that she went through the agony of labor 18 times. After my first bump at the School of Pharmacy, I noticed how empowering it is to see my female doctors and preceptors strive, lead and conquer in their careers. Some were married, some had children, some were single or widowed and other sick, but despite all those discrepancies, they all mentored students and saved patients.

Sylvia Boutros

Professional Third Year Pharmacy Student

Lebanese American University

My first mental breakdown made me appreciate my mother who suffered from genetic depression for as long as I can remember, but still took her pills picked her broken pieces and managed to raise us without letting her state affect us. Suddenly, my heartbreak got lamer, my cramps seemed soother, my academic bump smoother and my breakdown more containable.

We lift each other up. No woman is worthless. We

are heroes. Being a woman is already a full time job itself. We are never on vacation, neither biologically, mentally, emotionally nor socially. We need to sacrifice with pain, every day, whether in period cramps, in our first time, during labor, or when breastfeeding. We sacrifice with some of our dreams that get suppressed either by a pregnancy or by a postpartum depression or by hormone induced mood swings that tie us up and let us dwell in our present. Yet we manage to move forward. Those details seem so basic and so lame in a Man-lead society yet it is this force to overcome those underestimated fore mentioned pains that keeps the family tree growing bigger and its roots digging deeper.

Therefore, I would like to say to all the women out there, I finally found my idol after 22 years. It was never a person, it was you, with all of your incredibly inspiring intrepid actions combined in the woman that I aspire to become. Thank you for that.