“I love my creative life more than I love cooperating with my own oppression.”
I know why women in their forties lose their minds and blow stuff up. Or maybe better yet, “I know why I’m losing my mind in my forties and want to blow stuff up.”
It is a visceral response. If I could take a sledge hammer to window panes and old guitars, I would do it. I mentioned this to my Mastermind group this week and Zoe said that, in New York, they have places where people can go to break shit. Put me down for that.
That scene in “Office Space” where the guys destroy the copy machine with baseball bats to a rip rap song? Put me down for one of those.
I remember watching “Fried Green Tomatoes” and having no understanding of Kathy Bates’ character. I get it now.
All I can say is that it is impossible to behave a life away. There is a price you pay for keeping up appearances and making it look like you’re fine all the time. I am living the consequence of “It’s fine.” and this isn’t the realization of a moment, it’s a realization churning and brewing over probably months and years until it hit like a grand piano from 20 stories up and there I was, down on the sidewalk with a pretend smile on my face like I was fine.
Death by one thousand “fines.” Death by one thousand decisions to keep quiet and play along. Death by one thousand cuts. To cooperate with my own oppression and truly, honestly, there is no one to blame but my own assumption that that was what I was supposed to do. I thought I was supposed to be everything to everybody. I thought people would like me more if I became what they wanted me to be. I thought that I could soften all my edges down to nothing so as not to be a bother and let life go easy for them (not me).
How can I make myself the most harmless version of myself possible? How can I study and learn from everyone’s likes and dislikes so that I never intentionally break a window of relationship or smash a guitar of fellowship?
Ya know what that does? It saves it all up for the day a woman turns wild.
Cue baseball bat and the whole world. Guess what, everybody, it doesn’t feel good to reflect on life spent half-chained to a big rock. It doesn’t feel good to realize you did it to yourself. All the more reason to smash everything.
No one wants me for my youth or my beauty or my babies or my adorable pre-made snacks at the little preschool field trip. I’ve successfully worked myself out of all my identity, so what now? I chose all that and I chose the oppression thing and then one day, right around now, I looked around and beheld dishonesty masquerading as virtue, masquerading as kindness and all I could see was untruth. The opposite of my Christian calling and it made. me. crazy.
And, thank God, a couple of days ago it dawned on me that I wasn’t mad at dishonesty around me (I mean, I am, it’s not cool to be untruthful-tell the truth, everybody) but actually, I finally clearly saw I WAS THE DISHONEST ONE! It was driving me crazy because it was pointing to me. My untruth, my dishonesty, my unkindness!!!
My untruth of people pleasing is harmful. My dishonesty by keeping my mouth shut when something bothers me is violence toward myself and straight up lying to other people. My unkindness of doubting the love and kindness of others is enough to make me go crazy.
And isn’t that the whole reason why I did it in the first place? All those moments of true emotion when everyone’s eyes get big and they look at you like you’re a creature from another planet? All those times when I was a woman raising my voice and immediately was treated like a child or a maniac? I saw those reactions. I know full well the badge of hysteria placed upon a woman. She’s a child, she’s a danger, she’s apt to explode into permanent irrational behavior should she lose it for a minute. I had learned the consequence of allowing myself freedom of the wild and it did not go well for me.
Any time in history when a woman would reach for her power, it was a punishable offense. And we pass it on and pass it on and the unspoken truth is you only get to be here if you behave.
Right up until crazy feels like the better option.
All those “you’re so dramatic” “calm down” “easy, there” “simmer down” were all message to let me know there was something wrong with me. I get it. I got the message. Message received.
And here’s the thing. I can’t blame anyone but myself. And living dishonestly is no longer tolerable. If you’re still reading, here’s the pivot.
Losing my shit and smashing things feels like the right move, but I know full well it isn’t. The answer is not to blow stuff up. The answer is to reflect on how I’ve been losing and smashing this whole time and it’s now time to put things back together. I don’t want to break anything. I want to mend it all. Mend my broken parts, mend my speaking, mend my honesty, mend my image of myself.
Take all that wild energy and use it to turn things better. Better truth, better love, better relationships, clearer vision, clearer strength, clearer understanding of love as being fully available to me in good behavior and in bad. A wild feminine is not rooted in destruction. A wild feminine is growth and nurture, it is care and deep deep love. It takes discovering the desire to break things in order to realize that the power is really pointing to love and the truth of love rooted in grace and growth and freedom.
Godzilla meets the gardener. Big energy lovingly embraced to create, not destroy. That is a woman turning wild.