Dear Readers,

I started the theme of this issue with a list of things I wanted to unbecome:
Fat
Lazy
Depressed
Anxious
The type of person who gets a lot of uber eats orders during the week.
People pleaser
Caretaker to a fault
Lacking in discipline
Messy
Overspender
Shopaholic
A person with a weak af pelvic floor.
Fixer

The list was long. And then. The pieces for this issue started lighting up my inbox. My writers said that unbecoming was the opposite of how I was looking at it. They said that it was beautiful to unbecome. They said that women need to unbecome to see their capital “S” self. This idea that we are trained to become women one way and one way only, but in the un-training ourselves, we find our full, true selves; the message is the core value of what this zine was built on.

The stories that our writers wrote were about what it feels like when our heroes unbecome and transition into retirement. How this change leaves us to grieve and move forward and honor. They were about society’s rules of womanhood and the beautiful freedom of unbecoming who people tell you to be. They were about motherhood, womanhood, broken hearts, childfree women, bangs!

So, I began with a new list; one that empowers rather than impedes. As I’ve aged, what are the parts of me that have unbecome, evolved, and matured? I can see that the depressive part of me is my greatest protector and so instead of unbecoming her, I can honor her and let her know that we got this, I am an adult, baby girl. I can see that the fat part of me is a little girl who was lonely, neglected, and abused. She has a trauma response and is also protecting me from her fears of what could come. And to her I say, with a softness I reserve only for her,: “we are no longer a child, mama, we are an adult, I got you, we got you, we are okay.”

To me, unbecoming is about the collective coming together and claiming an identity that is fuller and complexly layered, not a polarizing “be a good little girl” or “be a bad little girl”.

Instead of unbecoming as changing all the things I “should” change, I would rather see how unbecoming allows freedom, grief, and agency in selfhood.

I’m incredibly proud of this issue. So, go about unbecoming to become your full self!

Warmly,

Sonia Chintha
Your Editor in Chief