On Reading "The Awakening"

I’m sure I scared my mother-in-law when I explained what The Awakening was about and then started getting my allergic reaction to my wedding ring. I assure you, this is no Freudian symptom of an aversion to marriage, although there could be a great HuffPost article in it for me if I really wanted to take that angle. Nah.

I bought The Awakening at a plantation my friends and I visited on our way into New Orleans. This trip at the beginning of May was the first break I had since my husband’s grandmother got sick at the end of last October. In the time since, we had to provide around-the-clock care for his mom and grandpa while his grandma was shuffled to and from the hospital, her home, and a nursing home, eventually receiving personal hospice care from Kam, my sister, and I. After she passed on Christmas Eve, we moved his mom and grandpa into our house, then moved his grandpa to memory care, and finally, I agreed to become a full time caregiver to my mother-in-law. In the meantime, we have to work on selling his family’s things and home. So while I was at the end of an emotional journey, it was only one phase of it with a brief respite before we embark on a new phase. Which will be followed by another phase. And another.

My trip was important. I’d felt cut off for months but could tell that I was changing as a person. Going to New Orleans, a city I have often and long dreamt about, I was testing out this new person that I wasn’t certain could hack it in the real world. Sure, you can be the master of your home and the people who rely on you, creating schedules, checking things off lists, but can you go to a big city and feel every moment, take in every encounter, every experience and just enjoy the break, no matter how brief you know it is before you must go back to slogging? Can you be fully alive? I didn’t want to be worse off than I was before. I didn’t want to be afraid of the world and of the risks I knew I needed to take to make my fate something I could be proud of.

The Awakening is a Victorian tale of Edna Pontellier, a woman who meets a young man, Robert Lebrun, on Grand Isle and realizes she is not happy with the life she has been mechanically pursuing for everyone but herself. Their meeting taps in to her sexuality and her desire to be independent of not only her husband and children, but of societal pressures to conform. She takes her painting seriously, moves in to a smaller home around the corner from her own in New Orleans, and even takes a lover while Robert is gone in Mexico. When he returns, she is dismayed that he does not share in her awakening; he still feels a fidelity to societal expectations. Being fully conscious only makes her more miserable when she realizes she is a bird with wings but she is still trapped in a cage, unable to truly live the life she dreams of with the one she truly loves.

The Awakening doesn’t have a happy ending, but somehow I still found hope. She gets to take herself seriously and she is brave enough to question life, even when everyone around her laughs or shrugs it off out of fear. She lives her dream, even if just for a moment. Just because Robert, her inspiration, isn’t brave enough to take the world by storm with her and forge a path of love while belonging to themselves, it doesn’t mean the dream is dead. She was ahead of her time, but she obviously wasn’t the only one.

I had always been ashamed and sometimes resentful of my choice to get married when I was just 22. Our lives were ruled by family, with my sister moving in months after we were married, and then my mother-in-law’s stroke shortly after my sister moved out. We were tethered to Oklahoma more than ever and grew tired of watching over a future with an indefinite start date. It crushed us both. We spread our time between our nine-to-fives, his family, and eating fast food at 10PM before crashing late and starting the whole process over. When I dreamt of graduating college, I dreamt of all the possibilities, and this new post-grad grind seemed void of any. I felt foolish for thinking I could find love so young and not let it ruin my future. We no longer live in Victorian times, so isn’t it our duty as women to go out and live the lives that many of these women only fantasized about? We need a life outside our relationships and our children, if we choose to have any. We need to exercise the choices we have and keep pushing forward, because while things have gotten better we aren’t out of the woods yet.

For three years we kept up our grueling schedule. I worried that the only importance I had to my husband was to act as another set of hands to transfer his mother. Everyone around me, especially in the buckle of the Bible Belt, seemed to have the idea I was doing what I was supposed to do, what was expected of me. This is what marriage is and you should have thought about that before you jumped in so young. Told you so… It seemed I had a choice, so surely I am better off than Victorians, but I felt doomed to a choice I thought I could avoid. All along I was harassed about having children when all I could think about were my lost twenties. I was working clerical positions with daunting commutes and with people who found me too strange to get to know. I looked the part of a young newly married twentysomething but I wasn’t happy and no one wants to deal with that, no one wants to question institutions they firmly believe in like family, marriage, children, and religion. They want to go with the status quo because it’s easier but I never wanted to be part of the status quo.

The fault in my resentment, that I was not aware of until recently, was that while those around me may have seen nothing amiss, that was not the case with my husband. I finally realized that this is not what he wanted, for me, himself, or even his family. He just wanted to make sure everyone was taken care of, but he would have loved if his grandparents and mother had gotten all the big stuff figured out and made things easier on him. He didn’t want us to have a typical marriage. He still doesn’t. He wants to have kids, but when we have had some years of freedom together first. My success is as important to him as his own is. He didn’t want to marry a housewife, so he was my number one supporter when I realized that writing is what I truly want to do.

Over the years, a part of me died, but it was necessary if I were going to become the person I really want to be. Not the person my dad or my mom or my extended family – even what a younger me – wanted me to be.  I’ve seen what I am capable of and what the love I share with my husband is capable of if I stop accusing it and taking it for granted.

Just as Edna Pontellier’s soul awakens to new possibilities, so did mine. As I walked around New Orleans I felt at peace. I felt strong and found myself unworried about what other people think. I embraced my taste and allowed myself to finally dress the way I always want to because I finally felt young enough to pull it off. I talked to all sorts of people who could see I belonged there with my smile that consumed me. I ate and drank like a queen and found that place you can get to when you meditate or do yoga, but without my prayer beads or mat on hand. That trip pulled me out of my head and allowed me to see my progress. The sculpture is in no way done, but it’s taking shape and I like what I see.

Unlike Edna, I have found the love that stays behind at the pigeon house, waiting to embark on a fresh adventure, but more importantly, I know that I am tough and talented enough to stay at the pigeon house by myself. I made the choice to get married and I made the choice to stay by my husband’s side through his worst nightmares. But I also have the privilege to choose, whether all of society is on board or not. I choose to make time for myself, my work, and the life that I want; the life I own and choose to merge with my husband’s. While I empathize with Edna’s struggle to find herself as a woman and artist, I can also take heart that I don’t have to send my naked body to sea, that I can sit on the shore awhile and enjoy my freshly awakened soul.

"The Bachelor" and the Problem with No Name

Leave it to me to simultaneously become enthralled with the current season of The Bachelor and The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. My mother-in-law is to thank for my new addiction to The Bachelor. I have seen a few episodes here and there throughout the years, but never got invested in a full season. The idea of a bunch of women clawing their way to one man that is chosen for them and they barely know seemed a little too medieval for my taste. I made myself let go so I could indulge in some mother-in-law bonding time until Betty Friedan made the feminist in me furious for Sharleen Joynt, the opera singer.

 As anyone who’s anyone knows, Sharleen decides to leave after a season of deliberation, despite Juan Pablo’s interest. All the girls on the show have been confounded by their connection and when I read blogs covering this season everyone seems to think she is the weirdo that should have left after the first night if she wasn’t instantly obsessed with Juan Pablo.

I liked her immediately. You can tell she is a very intelligent and serious person from having worked at a very formal singing tradition most of her life. She has also lived and traveled around the world, but still geeked out when she went to a cocktail party in Middleton while in New Zealand. She also processed the experience as I imagine I would, making me relate to a contestant for once. She rocks.

While I thought she might be a little intense for him, I also saw why they were attracted to one another. She and Juan Pablo were able to share in the experience of leaving home, not just for another state, but an entirely different country and culture. I think she signed up for it because she was single, was interested in a new adventure, thought that Juan Pablo was cute and maybe she’d make a love connection. If nothing else, she walks away with a bizarre, one-of-a-kind experience and perhaps a new audience for her music. But going through all of that, spending time with so many women that are so drastically different from who she is and what she values, and watching them have these same strong connections with Juan Pablo, of course it made her pause.

I’ll admit that even I was starting to get tired of her hemming and hawing, though. I can see why the other girls would be frustrated as well. They are all there for the ring and children and a fairy tale ending. But just as I started to slip into a vapid rabbit hole with the audience and contestants, I also finished the first chapter of The Feminine Mystique. As I am reading about women trapped in the role of wife/mother/homemaker, everything that bothers me about The Bachelor and the Sharleen begrudgers comes to light.

The women that refuse to see the show for what it is or to question if Juan Pablo is the right fit for them are the crazy ones. Yes, you sign up for a show, but does that mean you shut off your brain? Does that mean you don’t examine this man and what it would realistically make your future look like?  Just like everyone else, all of her fears are coming out. While some women show that their fear is not being the prettiest or the best liked or the center of attention, her fears are based in questions of what she wants and if she can have it all. On top of that, she feels guilty for bothering to question. She says it herself, “I wish I were dumber.” I understand completely. She shouldn’t feel bad. At the heart of her questioning is a very real concern. If you are going to get a proposal, move to another country, limit your career considerably by settling down (at least from what everyone keeps saying), and become a stepmother, I would hope you are seriously thinking about it. We all know it’s a hoax for the most part, that the people that meet on the show generally do not work out, but Sharleen has every reason to feel apprehensive.

Part of me worried whether I was making the right choice falling in love and getting engaged at twenty and married at twenty-two. Some of it was about my husband and whether I thought he would respect and encourage me to have my own life and experiences. Too many men want to control the woman that they are with and want her to focus on them and their family and stop worrying about all that other stuff, even in this day and age. I didn't want to grow and change and find that he didn't want me to. More than that, I worried about fulfilling the promises I made to myself. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of marriage and kids being my only aspirations. I have always wanted to travel, learn, meet new, different people and have interesting conversations, read books that change me at my core, and find my personal way to be part of the world. I eventually got over my jitters. My husband proved how much he cares about me living a fulfilling life of my own and I never stopped being a part of the world and learning. I’d be lying if I said that it’s been easy to maintain the balance between self and marriage. It’s a very real struggle to honor oneself while being with someone no matter how attractive or wealthy or perfect.

Back to Sharleen: Here is a woman, with a career she has focused on and has kept her traveling and performing for many years and she is starting to feel a connection with a man that is tied to Miami for his job and family. It seems like everyone on the show assumes that whomever Juan Pablo picks is obligated to drop everything and move to him. Is that a rule? Is there no room for discussion? No room for compromise? That was the question I hoped Sharleen would ask. Yes, she says she is up for change. But is she? Should she have to be? The very thing that makes her stand out among the other girls, her worldliness and maturity, seems the thing making everyone assume she is unsuitable for Juan Pablo. 

Even Juan Pablo sees and understands her struggle but never tries to convince her that he would make it work for the both of them. To be fair, maybe they have that conversation and we don’t see it, but that’s a problem. We need to see that talk. It’s important and realistic and even if this is all for fun, let’s acknowledge the reality of women and their dreams today. Let’s not brush her off and assume she lacks what it takes to be a real woman that someone as special as Juan Pablo deserves. She's pretty damn special too. I understand this is a show about him and for him, but why are we trying to convince this woman or the young women and girls watching that this New Woman, as Friedan named the independent career women of the twenties through forties, is someone to fear, to repel against? Haven’t we covered this all ready? What was all that work for if she gives it up to be stranded in Miami with a guy she barely knows? The hardest part about finding someone is figuring out how to make it all work, but if you are equally committed to each other's happiness and success, you can figure it out. Unfortunately there are plenty of people who still don't think of this as an option, let alone what they aspire to have. 

In Friedan’s book, excerpts from interviews with women of various education levels and locations explain how they all feel trapped, they all feel useless, and they all wonder if this is all life has to offer. They feel like they are in the wrong because they should be overjoyed to have so many devices and luxuries and children and a husband at their disposal. When I started the book, I thought it would help me see how far we have come and why, but when I watch The Bachelor and the way that the other contestants, the audience, and even the host view Sharleen’s hot and cold feelings for Juan Pablo, I know the fight isn’t over. I never thought it was over, living in the middle of a rape culture, but I guess I hoped we were making some strides when it came to our views on straight marriage (let alone GAY marriage) and the expectations we place on women.

 While careers are at the forefront of women today, we are still trapped in the details of our future wedding day(s), a point made obvious by the women signing up in droves for The Bachelor and watching each season with bated breath. Many women have their wedding day planned out but no relationship. When they get into a relationship you feel them rushing it into marriage so they can have their wedding, buy that house, have those kids. Shouldn’t the goal in life be living a life that fulfills you in every aspect, a goal that may happen with or without a man? I believe this can happen even when you are married, that you can be the well rounded person you want to be, but why does marriage seem to still hold a key for so many women?

I can tell you from personal experience that marriage itself does not bring you happiness. If anything, it brings more unhappiness. You enter into a marriage accepting that you will take on the joy of your partner, but you also take on all of their hardships as well. You nod your head, thinking you understand what this means, but remember, when you aren’t having hardships and the other person is, you can’t just brush them off and go have fun. That’s when they need you most. My husband and I have been through hell and back our entire relationship, taking care of his grandparents through dementia and cancer, as well as his mother who suffered a stroke three and a half years ago. I was in college when we met and dealt with these questions and troubles while I was figuring out who I wanted to be. But it’s our connection, the fun that he brings to my life even when we are going through hard times that keeps me there. The present and the future shine so brightly with both of us fighting for each other and ourselves to not settle, to go for what and who we want to be. We complement and encourage our shared and separate happiness. Our wedding was one day, our marriage is our everyday.

Yes, times have changed. Yes, women have careers. But in the case of this particular bachelorette, she is losing a lot if she decides to go on with Juan Pablo under the assumed conditions of The Bachelor. It’s only a television show, but when young women and girls watch another woman get shitty comments and looks because she is weighing whether or not a man is the right fit for her and the life she has chosen up to this point, I can’t help but turn my brain back on and go, “WHAT THE FUCK?” All I can think about are all the women who were and still are shamed to sit lifeless at the kitchen counter, waiting for their family to dictate their days and wondering, “Is this it? What do I really want?”

Passing something off as “just TV” is a slippery slope. When we accept a public image, even if it ventures from what we know is reality, it eventually becomes our truth. It’s what happened after men returned from World War II. The New Women of the 1940s, who had taken over most of the writing and editing of women’s magazines and advertising, suddenly found themselves sent home. The men were back. They weren’t here for the rebirth of women and the ones that were assumed it was temporary, a phase. As Friedan said, the men back from war were full of nostalgia for the old way of domestic life. Suddenly these writers, poets, baseball players, psychologists, nurses, were being sent home to pop out kids and starch their husband’s suit. Thanks for holding down the fort, but go back where you know you really thrive, where you can achieve real happiness. Because you’re a woman, it’s your destiny.

Maybe you enjoy the drama; to sit around and judge these women for having to be whomever this season’s bachelor wants them to be. Maybe it’s all in good fun. Maybe I need to get out more and not make such a big deal over a small plot point on a silly reality show. Maybe it’s easier to find the ideal shade for your wedding day mani-pedi and rip apart women, like Sharleen, who are just trying to figure who and what they want to be and how/if a suitor fits in. Maybe it’s easier to accept traditional ideas and stereotypes and make them our own, to stick to the path of least resistance. Or maybe we should give ourselves more credit than that.  

Dream A Little Dream

I had a the craziest dream with all my biggest fears mashed together about a month ago and I TOTALLY forgot to tell you.  At the time of this nightmare, I was really self-conscious about my job and felt like my boss was avoiding me like a girl he hopes will break up with him if he ignores her enough.  I was also in the process of my house being built.  I am also always on the verge of my next twenty-something meltdown so life fears come in to play as well as fears relating to the close relationship I have with my mom and sister and the HUGE guilt complex that weighs heavy on my life.  Now that you are cringing at what a mess I am:

It starts with my husby and I walking through an art museum with one of his friends from college who is now a successful film critic and playwright in LA.  Well she brought her boyfriend who didn't have much of a face in this dream BUT as we were walking around and my husby was dressed like a douchebag with a backwards cap and a polo (which is NOT his style) he kept ripping on me with his friend for how lame I supposedly am.  Then he said that because of said lameness, he wanted a divorce.  Like, a for reals divorce.  Not the one we joke about all the time in real life.  But a real one.  And he was so casual about it.  In fact, I'm pretty sure he was texting while he told me this.  So then his friend tells me that she never respected me b/c I am with someone that treats me like that and I allow it to happen.  Unfair! (She is not like this in real life, FYI, so cool your jets.)

I awoke momentarily to make sure my husband had not left me and when I dozed off again, I was on a trip with everyone I knew.  Like, EVERYONE: close friends from Michigan and Oklahoma, most of my coworkers at my current job, as well as people from my study abroad group.  Our trip was a quick drive to Turkey in my blue Fit.  All of us.  You know what a Fit is, right?

EXACTLY MY POINT.  And yes, we drove.  There were no dream cruise lines or frozen oceans.  We drove.  And Turkey kind of looked more like a summer camp in Northern Michigan until we got to the marketplace later on.  Hold up, we'll get to that.

So at some point, my old boss, the one before the one ignoring me like a lame girlfriend in real life, but from the same company, comes to tell me that my Fit isn't working b/c my friend had either slashed the tires or ruined the engine somehow and we all needed to leave the next day and if I didn't figure something out, I would be letting down the whole company and could lose my job.  So I am repeatedly telling all my friends now, "Please don't book a flight, I'll figure it out," even though in my head I'm thinking, "I really don't want to fit all of you bastards into my Fit again so it would really be more convenient if you did."

First thing's first, I go to the house that my friend is staying in and I confront him.  "Why the hell did you fuck up my car?  I have to figure something out now!"  To which he goes berserk on me about going off his medication b/c he's sick of it and then proceeds to grab a drawer and run out on the lawn, screaming nonsense and dumping toys and trash on the ground.  Also, nothing like said friend.

So then I run off to talk to my sister and she says my mom is really mad and disappointed in me and refuses to talk to me.  So now my anxiety is up even more and I make my sister take me to the Turkish marketplace so I can see for myself.  Now the scene has changed to old school, ultra sandy and windy desert marketplace with people bartering left and right, speaking Turkish and my mom is now running one of these stands and refuses to even look at me.  My sister is all, "See?  I told you.  Leave us alone."

So then I run back to this weird Northern Michigan summer camp of houses that everyone I know is staying in and I am running around in this house that is supposedly the one that I built and the flooring has been put in.  I work in flooring in real life so this aspect of my new build house was uber important to me.  So when I go inside, it's mostly this weird velvet carpet that is all these dark maroons and greens and blacks and grays that is supposed to look like a stone walkway.  Some of it is even installed up the wall and in the kitchen but then there is a weird patch of laminate by the sink for water that will get on the floor.  So I am flipping out.  Everyone is thinking I am crazy and wondering why I'm so upset.  There is some laminate too but that is only in the tiny living room when you first walk into my tri-level house.  FYI my house isn't tri-level.  Nonsense.

I go outside and I run into one of my friends from my study abroad who used to be pretty quiet, but blossomed on our study abroad.  Well she starts telling me how she and one of my good friends who was also on our study abroad were going to stay in Turkey for awhile and why don't I join them?  I'm like, dude, I got all these people to get back home tomorrow and my husband.  Which then makes her go into judgmental mode that's all about me ruining my life by getting married and now I can't decide to stay in Turkey on a whim and that's why she and my friend are great friends and I am a loner.  We have this chat as we walk through the Turkish marketplace as I secretly look for my mom who apparently has closed up her shop for the day.

At this point I woke up.  My anxiety was skyrocketing, but my husband is still with me, my house turned out great and my family is NOT mad and giving me the silent treatment.  O, and no one ruined my car or drove it to Turkey.

Now my friends may judge me for being married at a young age and sometimes I even judge myself b/c it goes against what I had always believed in, BUT if marriage means the end of your life and your freedom and your fun, then you are probably right b/c it sounds like you have already decided you are going to let your life die if/when you get married.  But your life is always happening and you can have wonderful times of growth and happiness at any age and any marital status as long as you are confident in your choices, find the beauty in their outcomes and always find a way to work your current situation to your advantage.  And as long as you don't date or marry an unsupportive dickhole, which fortunately is NOT my case.  So step off, Judge Judy.  HA!  Bet you didn't think you'd get a life lesson outta that one.


velvet floors and transcontinental Fit trips,


bunny