For almost two years, I’ve tried to put into words what HerHaus is. We’ve had a hell of a time figuring this out. How do you talk about something that is the first of its kind?

I’ve asked members how they describe it to their friends. I’ve written and rewritten website copy, and I’ve tried taglines, elevator pitches, and neat little sentences that could explain why this group of women feels different from every other women’s organization I’ve been part of. Members have helped me come up with some pretty good descriptions: “It’s not a typical networking group.” “It’s definitely not a sorority.” “It’s not really a social group.” One member called it “networking, but edgier,” which is pretty accurate.

But I’ve started to notice that we mostly describe HerHaus by saying what it isn’t, and that’s always bothered me. I know what it feels like when we’re together, and I know the women who belong here when I meet them. I know there’s something connecting us that goes deeper than networking or friendship or professional development. I just haven’t been able to name what that is.

Then this weekend, while sitting alone in my house binge-watching a romantic drama, I think I finally did. And, of all people, the goddess Persephone helped me figure it out. I read Every Summer After before I watched “Every Year After.” I loved the book, so when I realized it had been turned into a series, I knew I would watch it.

Every year, the family takes a weekend trip without me, and every year, I look forward to it with an enthusiasm that perhaps a wife and mother isn’t supposed to admit to. I love my family AND I love when they leave. Why? Because for a few days, no one needs anything from me. There are no schedules to coordinate, no questions coming from another room, and no conversations happening while I’m trying to read. I don’t have to consider what anyone else wants for dinner or what anyone else wants to do. The house gets very, very quiet, and so do I.

I need alone time in my life. I need periods when I can disappear from the surface for a little while and descend into myself, which is probably why, sitting alone in my house this weekend, I thought of Persephone. There’s a scene toward the end of “Every Year After” when the main character, Percy, reads something she’s written about the Greek goddess she was named for. Persephone is often remembered as the goddess of spring, the maiden picking flowers and the daughter whose return brings warmth and life back to the earth. But Persephone is also Queen of the Underworld. She belongs to the flowers AND she belongs to the darkness.

Earlier that same weekend, before Persephone gave me the language for it, I’d been talking with a coach about a feeling I’ve been struggling to explain. There’s a yearning inside me, a sense that I want something more, although I can’t always tell you exactly what “more” is. I told her how ridiculous that feels because I have a great life. I have a family I love, friends I adore, work that challenges me, and a community we’ve built from nothing that has introduced me to extraordinary women. I have a home, opportunities, experiences, and so many things I once hoped my life would contain.

I am grateful, so what right do I have to be unhappy?

She reminded me that both can be true. I can be deeply grateful for my life AND feel unhappy inside it. One does not invalidate the other.

I think women spend a lot of our lives trying to turn our ANDs into ORs. We can love our children OR need space from them. We can love our husbands OR question parts of our marriages. We can be grateful OR want more, successful OR uncertain, confident OR insecure, soft OR powerful. We can be happy OR sad. We can love the lives we’ve built OR wonder about the lives we haven’t.

We’re supposed to pick one because, when we hold two seemingly contradictory truths at once, we assume something must be wrong. We decide we’re ungrateful, selfish, or confused, or that we simply haven’t figured ourselves out yet. However, Persephone doesn’t choose. She is the goddess of spring AND the Queen of the Underworld. She knows sunlight and darkness, blooming and dying. She descends and she returns, and neither version of her makes the other less true.

I’ve spent so much time trying to reconcile the contradictions inside myself, but I don’t think I need to resolve them anymore. I need to make room for them because one truth doesn’t cancel out another.

I can love my family AND need to be alone. I can be proud of the life I’ve built AND wonder what else is waiting for me. I can be grateful AND restless, joyful AND sad, certain AND completely unsure. I can be the woman everyone sees above ground AND the woman I meet when I descend beneath it. Neither woman is more real. They are both me.

And this, finally, is the thing I’ve been trying to name about HerHaus. HerHaus isn’t “not networking,” nor is it simply “networking, but edgier.” It’s not defined by what it isn’t at all. It’s a place for women who live in the AND.

These are women who can talk about ambition and motherhood, sex and books, anxiety and business, aging and politics, and absolutely nothing important at all. They can teach me something AND make me laugh until my stomach hurts. They are accomplished AND still figuring shit out. They love their lives AND sometimes want to run away from them. They are grateful AND hungry, soft AND powerful, certain AND questioning. They don’t need to make themselves easier to categorize before walking into the room.

Similarly, with Persephone, we’ve told the story of a woman who moves between worlds, and her descent into the underworld is the dark part of the story, but I disagree. Sometimes we need to descend into the quiet. Sometimes we need to leave the people we love, even if it’s only for a weekend, so we can hear ourselves again. The underworld isn’t necessarily where we lose ourselves; perhaps it’s where we find the parts of ourselves that couldn’t be heard above ground.

When Persephone returns, she doesn’t leave the Queen of the Underworld behind. She brings all of herself back into the light. I want that for myself, and I want it for HerHaus.

I want us to stop explaining away the parts of ourselves that don’t seem to match and assuming that wanting more means we’re ungrateful for what we already have. I want us to understand that we can love what we have AND wonder what else there is. We can be happy AND not happy. We can bloom AND descend. We can contain things that contradict each other without immediately trying to decide which one is true.

They can both be true.

HerHaus is for women who live in the AND.

Turns out, that’s what we’ve been trying to say all along.

xoxo,

Lindsay