At the end of yet another year...
I once dreamed, many years ago, of being a woman comfortable in her own skin, happy with herself. In the dream, I was somewhere in my early thirties. And every time since then, when allowing life to defeat me has seemed like a viable option, that’s the image I’ve gone back to, to give myself reason not to be defeated.
And as the years go by, I find that I’m becoming the person in the image, even if it’s not been happening quite as quickly as I would like to. This isn’t the first time I’ve written about growing older, but each time I’ve written about it, I’ve written as a different person. Not always the person I’d like to be, not even always a person I particularly like.
This year, however, is exceptional for me. For the first time ever, I’m approaching another year with little sense of dread about who I am, or exactly how my journey is going to end. As always, I don’t have the answers to either question, but for a change, I don’t feel inadequate for not having the answers. I find that I no longer need to have the answers to feel complete; I only need to accept that I don’t know. And that I have done.
Leaving aside what I don’t know, what I do know — or at least what I’m beginning to understand — is what I want of life for myself. When you’re younger, goals tend to be defined by societal and familial expectations. It’s only as you grow older (and work yourself into a position where you are reasonably comfortable telling the world and its dog to take a hike) that you begin to define your own goals, your own priorities. And they may not resemble those which the world would define for you.
Mine don’t; not any longer. I don’t want a lover or a husband or children or a fabulous job or an incredible bank balance as ends in themselves; I only want myself — to be my own person. I’m not sure that sentiment lends itself to easy elaboration — I don’t not want any of those ‘things’; they’re just not the focus of my being. All that I want is to feel happy about myself. Nothing more, and nothing less.
The last year, and, in particular, the last few months have been interesting for me. (I use the word ‘interesting’ in the same way that the Chinese supposedly curse people by hoping that they live interesting times.) I’ve loved, and I’ve lost: health, people, desires. I’ve come across death recently in a way I had never imagined possible, and which shook me to the core of my being. The result has been that these few months have made my define my one requirement of life —feeling happy about myself — as nothing more being necessary, and nothing less being acceptable.
When I think of relationships, I think of love, passion, commitment, trust, kindness, reciprocity, enthusiasm, and of ‘a life worth being storied’, to use Charles Warnke’s words. The whole nine yards. I want it all, or nothing at all; nothing less will ever be enough for me. I’m not willing to attempt to ‘compromise’, to pretend that I don’t register things like being told that I happened to step into the path of someone only looking for sex, to attempt to convince myself that it doesn’t matter if I’m not loved as long as I love. It does matter. To me.
When I think of children, I think of a line in the film script of ‘Eat, Pray Love’: “Having a child is like getting a tattoo on your face; you kind of want to be fully committed.” I’m not committed to the idea of having a child, let alone children; I don’t have the financial resources to be certain that I would be able to care for a child. And unless I do — or, possibly until I do — children are not going to be a part of my life, and perhaps not even then. Not my own children, at any rate.
By God’s grace, nosy acquaintances apart, I’m not in a situation where I need either a man or a child. For that privilege, in a country where the value of a woman is often derived entirely from her marital status, I am incredibly grateful; it gives me the ability to focus on myself.
And when I think of myself, and what I’d like to become, I think very much along the lines of becoming, in my own way, like the Wrinklies who were, as Emily Rapp says, “Women who led rich lives full of meaningful work, deep and lasting friendship, sex when they wanted it, time with the beloved children of their family and friends, conversations about politics and art and literature, culture, travel to remarkable destinations where they did not journey as unconscious tourists but as guests in people’s homes and hearts. Despite these full lives they owned their own time, they owned their days.”
I don’t yet know what the future holds. May be it will include the traditionally accepted and expected family, may be it won’t. It doesn’t matter one way or the other whether it does or it doesn’t. All that does matter to be is that I become entirely my own person, and that I’m happy with myself. I’ve already lived a number of lives in the one life I’ve been given, and although I’m not yet the person I’d like to be, living the life I’d like to live, I know, with relative certainty, where I’m heading.
I once dreamed, many years ago, of being a woman comfortable in her own skin, happy with herself. In the dream, I was somewhere in my early thirties. And every time since then, when allowing life to defeat me has seemed like a viable option, that’s the image I’ve gone back to, to give myself reason not to be defeated.
And as the years go by, I find that I’m becoming the person in the image, even if it’s not been happening quite as quickly as I would like to. This isn’t the first time I’ve written about growing older, but each time I’ve written about it, I’ve written as a different person. Not always the person I’d like to be, not even always a person I particularly like.
This year, however, is exceptional for me. For the first time ever, I’m approaching another year with little sense of dread about who I am, or exactly how my journey is going to end. As always, I don’t have the answers to either question, but for a change, I don’t feel inadequate for not having the answers. I find that I no longer need to have the answers to feel complete; I only need to accept that I don’t know. And that I have done.
Leaving aside what I don’t know, what I do know — or at least what I’m beginning to understand — is what I want of life for myself. When you’re younger, goals tend to be defined by societal and familial expectations. It’s only as you grow older (and work yourself into a position where you are reasonably comfortable telling the world and its dog to take a hike) that you begin to define your own goals, your own priorities. And they may not resemble those which the world would define for you.
Mine don’t; not any longer. I don’t want a lover or a husband or children or a fabulous job or an incredible bank balance as ends in themselves; I only want myself — to be my own person. I’m not sure that sentiment lends itself to easy elaboration — I don’t not want any of those ‘things’; they’re just not the focus of my being. All that I want is to feel happy about myself. Nothing more, and nothing less.
The last year, and, in particular, the last few months have been interesting for me. (I use the word ‘interesting’ in the same way that the Chinese supposedly curse people by hoping that they live interesting times.) I’ve loved, and I’ve lost: health, people, desires. I’ve come across death recently in a way I had never imagined possible, and which shook me to the core of my being. The result has been that these few months have made my define my one requirement of life —feeling happy about myself — as nothing more being necessary, and nothing less being acceptable.
When I think of relationships, I think of love, passion, commitment, trust, kindness, reciprocity, enthusiasm, and of ‘a life worth being storied’, to use Charles Warnke’s words. The whole nine yards. I want it all, or nothing at all; nothing less will ever be enough for me. I’m not willing to attempt to ‘compromise’, to pretend that I don’t register things like being told that I happened to step into the path of someone only looking for sex, to attempt to convince myself that it doesn’t matter if I’m not loved as long as I love. It does matter. To me.
When I think of children, I think of a line in the film script of ‘Eat, Pray Love’: “Having a child is like getting a tattoo on your face; you kind of want to be fully committed.” I’m not committed to the idea of having a child, let alone children; I don’t have the financial resources to be certain that I would be able to care for a child. And unless I do — or, possibly until I do — children are not going to be a part of my life, and perhaps not even then. Not my own children, at any rate.
By God’s grace, nosy acquaintances apart, I’m not in a situation where I need either a man or a child. For that privilege, in a country where the value of a woman is often derived entirely from her marital status, I am incredibly grateful; it gives me the ability to focus on myself.
And when I think of myself, and what I’d like to become, I think very much along the lines of becoming, in my own way, like the Wrinklies who were, as Emily Rapp says, “Women who led rich lives full of meaningful work, deep and lasting friendship, sex when they wanted it, time with the beloved children of their family and friends, conversations about politics and art and literature, culture, travel to remarkable destinations where they did not journey as unconscious tourists but as guests in people’s homes and hearts. Despite these full lives they owned their own time, they owned their days.”
I don’t yet know what the future holds. May be it will include the traditionally accepted and expected family, may be it won’t. It doesn’t matter one way or the other whether it does or it doesn’t. All that does matter to be is that I become entirely my own person, and that I’m happy with myself. I’ve already lived a number of lives in the one life I’ve been given, and although I’m not yet the person I’d like to be, living the life I’d like to live, I know, with relative certainty, where I’m heading.
