Here’s the life of an American girl in most families:
Little girl: play, develop an imagination, pretend to be a princess, get dirty sometimes, play also with cars and watch super hero shows, pretend to be a ballerina, learn that lipstick is a thing, decide that shiny things are something everyone should want, decide that shiny things are DEFINITELY something YOU want
Older girl: master reading, learn to enjoy the imagination you developed as a vehicle to transport you through the world of reading, continue to enjoy shiny things, come to realize that being “pretty” gets you things, come to realize that you want to be pretty, begin to have doubts about unconventional things about you that might not be deemed “pretty”, start to think for longer periods of time about future jobs, realize that you will have to choose one at a time, start to give your list of possible career choices with “or” between profession names and mother instead of the word “and” without realizing why, maintain desire to be a princess
Young teen: box up toys, keep out a few with the disclaimer that you keep them out for memories while still snuggling the same doll every night, realize that even the gross boys can be cute and the cute boys are adorable, start asking for makeup, start sneaking makeup, start changing your list of aspirations based on your audience, start changing that conversation altogether based on the level of approval of your audience, maintain your deep seated desire to just be a princess
Older teen: put toys in the attic or garage to be stored “for my kids later”, start looking at colleges, continue looking at boys, increase the desire to gain the approval of one that does not repulse you, continue to enjoy shiny things, increase your awareness of things about you that other people may not find attractive, begin (or continue) to have insecurity with the physical vehicle that houses your soul, decide on the pursuit of an education for an area of study that seems amenable, possibly begin dating (I did not), maintain your deep seated desire to be a princess
College age: begin college OR join workforce, gain sensation of how large the world is and how small you are within it, begin to feel pressure of bills and/or deadlines for school courses or professional projects, increase the standard of appearance you have for yourself, hope that your increased standard gains you overall approval from your peers, hope that your increased standard gains you specific approval from another human, begin to pursue relationships, cycle through the inception and then ultimate demise of several relationships – romantic and platonic, experience failure with all its confusing complexities, maintain deep seated desire to be a princess
Mid 20’s: (Here we are going to make my timeline very specific to a woman who gets married to a man at this age since the point of this entry and this project is to view it from this widely practiced but very specific perspective) PHEW! Okay. Find an acceptable husband, feel at least temporarily that you have “won” at life because marriage is a lifelong commitment, continue studies or professional pursuits, continue enjoying shiny things, buy shiny things to surround you and your male human in your home, realize that not all male humans like shiny things like you do, start to feel like you’re aging quickly, start to notice your face skin is weirdly dry, begin to feel sure that your biological clock is ticking (cue clip from My Cousin Vinny of the effervescent Marisa Tomei stomping her foot on the porch of a cabin in Yazoo, Mississippi), broach subject of procreation with male human counterpart, decide to start “trying”, maintain deep seated desire to just be a princess, realize that now you’d have to settle for the title of queen, feel internal conflict over that
Late 20’s – early 30’s: begin navigating world of fertility, realize that a lot of your self worth is connected to the level of function of your uterus and ovaries, (here again my journey has to become specific to myself because I became pregnant relatively quickly. I am also among the blessed few that has never traversed the mean, angry waters of in utero infant loss or infertility), become pregnant, realize that you feel like poop, reach point in your pregnancy at which you no longer recognize yourself, decide that there are parts you hate about this new you, decide there are parts you LOVE about this new you, realize you are changing on every level, begin to worry if changes are bad or good, begin to worry if the bad changes are permanent, begin to lose ability to juggle everything that you could juggle successfully pre-pregnancy, hop aboard the roller coaster that is hormone fluxuation and mood swings, give birth to small human, decide that they are the reason that you were ever born, feel elation, begin to feel yourself understanding true exhaustion, decide that you now have a grasp on what would be effective torture techniques, type out a letter to the U.S. government to offer suggestions, exercise better judgment realizing that the purpose of your letter could be grossly misconstrued, begin to at least occasionally resent your male human counterpart turned coparent for his ability to always look SO STINKING RESTED!!, realize that you haven’t taken a shower in two days, realize that the “chocolate or poop test” yielded the result of…not chocolate, spend 8 months doing all of this, realize that you only own stretchy clothing now, realize that you don’t care, feel conflict (because you remember cute….she was a nice girl….really nothing wrong with her…she was nice), feel self loathing, look at baby and feel sure again that they are your entire purpose for being born, begin to lose whole sight of the fact that the reason you were born is to be none other than…..YOU!, come to agreement with male counterpart that it is no longer realistic or advantageous to pay for daycare, make the decision to be stay at home parent (specific to me, remember) realize that you have a limited amount of time to accomplish anything within the day, decide that all time would be best spent on the tiny human, look in the mirror and have no way to recognize who that person is, sigh and find a task to complete, maintain your deep seated desire to be a princess but realize you’re too old for princess and admit sadness that you feel there’s absolutely no way you could ever achieve queen
Mid 30’s to late 30’s: (these “phases” are on a sliding scale and are given based on my own life experience. Substitute or shift wherever you find it necessary) do everything in above phase 3 additional times, pass mirror, realize you look old but could look young if you wanted, go to cosmetic store and buy eye cream, entertain thoughts of being an adult student because “35 isn’t really as old as I used to think it was”, look around at piles of laundry for what is now a group of 4 – 7 people instead of 2 or 3, feel conflicted because you are so overwhelmed by housework and “wiping things” that you could scream but you also wouldn’t trade a second of the times that resulted in this mess if someone offered you the whole world, let out a sigh of resolution because even though the times are happy you do still have the mess and there is still poop involved, feel sort of resentful that you never get any awards or paychecks, start to really miss “cute”, settle on orthopedic sandals and tell yourself that “they look almost just like Birkenstocks!” even though they don’t but you can catch up with a 4 year old really fast if you have them on, begin to laugh at the idea of heels, decide it’s your daughter’s turn for “all of that”, maintain your deep seated desire to be a princess but realize now that queen is your only option, feel helpless and depleted and hopeless because queens don’t wear poop, look in the mirror and wonder if your male human counterpart actually thinks you’re “pretty” anymore, feel actual pity for him that he’s “stuck” with you, feel guilt….lots of guilt, feel failure
Does this resonate with anyone? Sheesh! That was long, but does that basic framework not fit a lot of us? I mean, switch out a thing or two and it might not be THAT far off. Does anything jump out to you? Something jumps out to me…
Loss of identity.
We are created to be an individual unique from every single other individual on planet earth at any point in human history past, present or future. So why is it that, especially in motherhood, one of the first things to go is…us? Why do we immediately default to not just the needs, but the mere desires of the people around us? STOP DOING THIS!!!
Okay, let me make a little disclaimer here. We have all met women who were self absorbed. These are the women who show up to things looking absolutely immaculate who also show up to show off. This group of women is NOT something to which we should strive to belong. These ones can be described as shallow and selfish.
Do you realize it’s a spectrum though? Do you realize that there is an equally disgusting extreme to that? You’ve met her too. “She” is constantly self deprecating, doesn’t ever try to dress up, actually tries to get attention by looking bedraggled and almost complains about not being able to be part of society at all because her children need her.
We need to have balance. We are vessels. We do not want a vessel that is overflowing with resources and comfort because the spillover is just that – wasted. I don’t feel like it’s healthy or productive to hoard resources or attention. But trust me, if you’re sitting there wondering if you fall into this group and feel some dread over that possibility, I can unequivocally assure you that you don’t. This group of women is actually very proud of their near narcissistic way of life. We also don’t want to be an empty, cracked, chipped up vessel though….because that’s actually wasteful too. In fact, that’s some of the most frustrating kind of waste too, because with the overflowing vessel, you can see it happening. With the cracked vessel, it’s almost a worse betrayal because the leaking is slow. The one putting the resource into the vessel doesn’t even realize until its too late that the vessel isn’t doing what it presented that it would do. On the same token, an empty vessel with nothing to offer at all does not help a single person or thing.
So what is the balance? This is where I want to make the distinction of self care versus self indulgence or self deprecation. To be honest, I find that myself and most of my constituents find ourselves more on the self deprecation end of the spectrum and just a few of my acquaintances on the poles. So let’s speak to our group.
Number one, why? Why do we find it more acceptable to lay ourselves down to have our souls and identities beheaded on the altar of “serving our families”? I don’t feel like we actually have a good understanding of what that even means! We have got to stop this, girls! Even the Bible says “Love your neighbor as yourself” but if we treated someone the way we treat ourselves, we wouldn’t HAVE friends!!! Are you missing that? Did you catch that? Could we please do better?
I have to be honest. This is hard for me. I have a lot of what I call “old ghosts”. Isn’t criticism a weird thing? It’s so vicious.
There was a time in my life when my children were younger that I received PUBLIC criticism from someone who claimed to have my best interest at heart. She sat on her podium of self deprecation and told an actual audience of other people that I was “overwhelmed by motherhood” as if it were unusual or an indicator of failure. I will never forget that moment for as long as I live. The criticism was on top of other undue criticism that I’d received that she had even, at one point, discredited. I have learned that this very same woman, during her own experience as a young mother found herself so “overwhelmed by motherhood” that she sat in her bedroom alone in a nearly catatonic state on the edge of her bed….ripping phone books in half. I also have good reason to believe that she now has an at least psychological dependency on prescription pain killers….keep in perspective who your critics are because doing this work after giving too much credence to people like this is grueling on its best days.
Do you have stories like that too? Probably. Do you want to be the most wonderful version of yourself? Also probably.
…..do you wanna be a queen?
YES! YES! YES!
Okay. I’m going to tell you how I’m going to try to achieve that healthy level of royalness, but, in order to do that, I’m going to have to tell you how I ended up here.
Catch up with me tomorrow, and I’ll explain to you the most recent parts of what has made this journey positive and what it looks like starting today. Today was my day 1 of self care.
Are you ready???
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