Something I learned much later than I should have
You can be more lonely in the company of others, then you can all alone.
I spent years in relationships with people who made me feel more lonely than I would have by myself.
Because - I didn’t know how to be alone.
But- I was desperate for nervous system regulation and wanted to be in the company others - so I tolerated bad company.
In relationships, on dates, in friendships.
This also happened because, I’m a woman -
As a woman, we are so often taught that we are meant to be in service to others, to care take for others, that our lives have value only through our relationships TO others, -not relationship to ourself.
And - I don’t have children.
And I don’t have a partner.
And I’m divorced.
And the majority of my family is dead or we’re not close, at all.
Who do I exist in relationship to? Who do I orient myself to - (That’s the question and so often how we exist, as women, positioning ourselves to others.)
But to not have this revealed or contested - this is how we keep patriarchy and capitalism in this country going - by convincing women that it is the natural order or expectation that we exist solely to take care of men (even or especially grown-ass men - significant others and partners, even co-workers, etc) and children.
My dear friend is from Russia and she often tells me that the common expression in the Soviet Union is - when it comes to having children -
But who will get you class of water when you’re old (on your death bed)?
And this is the reason that drives a lot of people to believe that they need to have children.
We’ve often discussed such a faulty notion - ie - just because you do have kids, how do you know they will be available, alive, or willing and able to do that for you?
It has taken me many years to get it, but now I see that -
The single and most solitary counter-cultural, revolutionary thing that I can do - as a middle-age single, childless woman, is to put all the care into myself and be self sufficient. (Because I’m a Cancer and a nurturer and I would give this in heaping doses on others; that comes naturally, for others, not directed towards myself.)
I didn’t know how to do this for myself.
And, my mother didn’t know how to do this for herself.
I clearly see the parallels.
Though she wanted so much more for me, I picked up her example.
Plus, I lived in this culture. I felt alone, scared, and discombobulated when everyone died.
I often times sit and wonder - what would this world look like if more women—earlier on—got the message that they could exist for themselves? And that they were enough? And then—they’d attract better partners? Make better mothers?
I don’t blame young girls for not getting the message. After all, as I’ve said, I was raised by a woman who tried her hardest to instill self-love and self-enoughness in me.
I wasn’t like some friends whose mothers advised them to date, attract male attention, reifying this idea that their only worth/value was in relationship to a man or as a caretaker of children.
And still - I ended up there in many ways. Not all by many.
If only more women could take care themselves financially - to be solvent and autonomous and self-sufficient.
If only more women looked towards other women who also did this - so we could develop supportive communities of women nurturing other women even over catering to men and children?
We’d burn it all to the ground. Society would fail to function.
Even when the pandemic happened, it was women—doing their careers/ working at home AND taking care of their children and families (read: men), that kept us going. The free labor of women is what keeps it all turning.
This country survives, in its late stage capitalism and with hope of the children/ future generation(s) that keep coming because there’s this expectation that this is fine, that it’s sustainable.
But it only keeps happening because we women continuously offer ourselves up as sacrificial lambs and willingly undergo all the emotional labor.
I’m not trying to say to say women shouldn’t have children, or have partners, but -
What if more women were really sound with themselves first—-no women allowed to marry until pre-frontal lobes develop? Until therapy is undergone? If we had to have x number of years in prioritizing ourselves first?
What if we didn’t simply didn’t take on or later accept the actions of men who didn’t shoulder their own weight in terms of emotional investment in the romantic relationship and in the child-rearing?
This country, this world, would be a very, very different place.
I so wish that, growing up, I had had many more examples of women who prioritized themselves outside of a relationship to a man and mothering children. To their careers or education or even their own evolution.
It may not have taken me until I was over 40 fucking years old to truly be an autonomous, financially independent, happily single woman.
