Yesterday I took a day, a full 24 hours, to just get away and do some self-care. I was me, just me. Not wife, not mother to the fur-kids, not housekeeper, not cook, not dispatcher, not any of those things that I have become over the past 10 years or so. It was an opportunity to just be Kristen.
I had a good talk with a friend and then I finally got to listen to Brené Brown's book "Daring Greatly" on part of my hike and on the drive home. I got to thinking about the rut I am in, where I am feeling like things aren't progressing, that I am missing "something" from my life and I was able to realize a few things.
There are a LOT of days that I don't feel like a "real" woman, at least in the way society in general thinks a woman should be, and I am ashamed for it. Society puts expectations on women to be, act and look a certain way. Brené talks about being small and quiet, being a good mother, looking perfect - where you have to be pretty and thin and sexy without being too much of any of it. Where you must be a good wife, mother, employee, volunteer, etc and do all those things without failure. Where you have to set the example of being "enough", even when, in the dark moments of your day, you don't ever feel like you are doing or being "enough". I am not the ideal woman, I have rarely been the standard of any of those things. I am big...my body, my intelligence, my strength, my heart, all of it large. I am not viewed as "pretty" by society's standard. I am not small, nor thin, nor sexy, nor quiet (get a few tequilas in me and you will see) nor am I, any longer, interested in trying to be any of those things...that is just setting me up for failure. Another thing I am not is a mother, and that is hard, really hard. Motherhood is the the pentultimate title that a women's identity is tied to and when you aren't that, or if it doesn't fit in to what society thinks of as motherhood, there is judgement, censure, shame and humiliation. All I have ever wanted to be is a mother.
I am ashamed of not being a mother, of not being a woman like almost ALL of the women I know. I am humiliated by my body betraying me and putting me through early menopause. I am afraid I am being judged by total strangers for not being the "ideal" woman. Going through peri-menopuse starting in my late-twenties and being post- menopausal, at 45 years old, has changed me at an earlier age than it would for most women...my body (has anyone seen my sex drive? It seems to have gotten lost), my personality, my emotions, my mental health...and it sucks, and it is hard and I hate it some days. I hate myself some days. I am ashamed that I hate myself. Am I not supposed to love myself? Then I am more ashamed and I start to doubt, and discount, my own feelings and the genuineness of the love of my husband. For how can he love and find sexy and attractive this half-woman? Oh I have all the parts, but they don't work like everyone else's. And then I realize, that I have been feeling like this for years...(sigh)...years.
Ever since I was very young, my external identity has been wrapped up in how I look, in being "womanly". I developed very early in my childhood and I stood out. Throughout most of my formative years I was picked on and sexually harrassed. Attention was very rarley about me, my accomplishments and character, but about my boobs. Not really even about my looks (I wasn't, am still not, traditionally pretty) but about what was from the neck down. Eventually, that is what I became, even to myself; someone who could really only offer the comforts of the flesh. Anything I accomplished outside of that was, for the most part, to fulfill other's expectations of me or to simply appease and serve them. I didn't have my own identity, my own sense of "self" and it took some upheavals, and the assistance of professionals, to help me truly see who I am. The me that isn't tied to any one else's views of me. But I still struggle with not being a Mom, in the traditional sense, because that is all I have ever wanted.
My husband, bless his heart, has born witness to these struggles, directly and indirectly, and I will hazard a guess that he didn't/doesn't truly know what was/is going on; he may have had an idea; but truly know? No. But how could he when I didn't really know either? All I knew was that my body and mind weren't doing what I needed them to and I would struggle, assess and ask for assistance without being able, truly able, to explain why I needed this help. So, now I get to be vulnerable, and courageous, and brave and ask for those things I need to help me live a connected and whole life. And then we go from there.
Over these past years it has been a struggle trying to figure out where I belong in the world. Finding my soul connections has proved challenging when the existence and experiences of the people I know is, seemingly, so different from mine. Opening up to others about what I am feeling, what I am insecure about and what I am ashamed of is quite difficult (understatement of the year) as it is for anyone, and can be even more difficult when lives look so different from the outside. What we need to remember, and remind ourselves of every day, is that the emotions of life are the same no matter what that life looks like. We are all afraid of something, we all experience joy and sadness, we all feel shame and guilt, and we all feel small and insecure at some point or another. What we need to do better at is being courageous and brave. Courage is hard, but being brave is it's own reward. When you brave the wilderness (I love Brené Brown) you find a way to live your life without fulfilling the expectations of others, setting your boundaries and being true to who you are and what you need all while being able to support others in their own journey to courage and bravery. It is where you seek your own path to authentic, wholehearted living and walk with others who are trying to find their own path. It is the kind of living when you can be compassionate with yourself, when you can talk about your pain and joy, when you can let go of your shame because you have people around you who don't judge you for the things you aren't and love you for all the things that you are. The good news is, I have a handful of people who I can turn to in times of sadness and pain, and in times of joy and triumph. They are my "soulmates". Some have similar experiences and feelings, some don't but are empathetic enough to "get it" and others challenge my thoughts about myself and my relationships. They all, everyone of them, celebrate my wins. Not because they know why I have won, but because I do. That is enough for them.
So now, at the ripe old age of 48, I am coming to terms with, and trying to establish, who and what I am when it doesn't fit what society's expectation of what a woman should be. The simple truth is, I am just me...Kristen...and all of the idiosyncrasies, foibles, accomplishments, vulnerability, courageousness and bravery that it has taken for me to get here. I will still struggle, I am human after all, but I will always find my way through this wilderness.
