You can call it mid life crisis and I will call it what the female species know as – ‘finally’ – Finally we get to live the life we weirdly consciously decided to hand over to other people to control and dictate how we spend the one and only life we get on this planet. We get middle age, along with our fully developed frontal lobe and we think – What the fuck was all that about! Of course societal judgement means we have to add on – ‘Of course we love our kids but I am now ready to live my life’. I’m gonna say fuck you to societal judgement (as per) and say – Jesus Christ – being a wife, mother – and let’s just face it ‘general grown up’ (don’t want to offend everyone, I have enough crazy drama with that, so I will keep it as ‘general’) is absolutely painful. For those that haven’t yet gone through it – think war torture – and you won’t be far wrong – in fact if I wasn’t trying to keep this to a short introductory blog I could give like for like examples – I will leave you with that little match up game!
Anyway what was I trying to say – oh yeah – I was always obsessed with the thought of living in 70s California. And admittedly I don’t have a time machine – but as a compromise Cali still exists – so I was gonna explore it, and find my little slice of heaven – my bolt hole
Some days I think a blot hole is too basic an idea – think canoe man! But whatever – the option will be there. It is an odd concept for a woman like me – working class (thus limited options), marriage and baby at 21 (yep shotgun wedding) to actually sit and ponder what I would want my life to look like: especially with all restraints removed. It almost feels like a fantasy – will it actually happen? And that isn’t just me – that’s society. Everytime I mention to someone that I’m buying a place in Cali – they smile and nod as if to say – Crazy bitch! And they mean it – a woman just shunning the life she has built to take the life she actually wants instead – isn’t that just for men? In fact the confusion was so much when I told them I was spending the summer in California looking for my new life – they would try to recalibrate like Google ‘Do you mean you are going on holiday?’. Yes Susan let’s go with that because I don’t want to break your brain sweetheart.
Of course finding your new life is as metaphorical as it is literal. I don’t just want to find a bolt hole – I want to find myself. Don’t panic -I don’t mean I am about to spark up a spliff (I’ll leave that to my teenage dirtbag), wear tie die and stop drinking (god forbid) – I might go for the free love like!? No I mean it in a very basic sense of the phrase – who the fuck am I! I know who I have had to become, I know what people think I am, I know what people want me to be, I know the narratives that have been carved by others – but actually outside of others eyes and expectations – who am I – or maybe the phrase is – who would I have been? Maybe that is a question none of us can ever find the answer to – I mean we can’t undo the trauma, the lessons and sadly the way our brains have now been programmed – and tragically – we now have these priorities who we love far more than we love ourselves. And of course perhaps thats how it is meant to be. You give birth, get married – and your life as a solo human is literally over – never again will your life be your own.
With that said therefore – want to join me on this journey to find out if as a woman we can ever become just a girl again – or whether those decisions we made in what we now know was the infancy of our story took that opportunity from us forever. I don’t know the answers but I am going to do the research if you care to follow for a while (no doubt I will have a new thread of thought soon)
If Cali can’t save me – probably nobody can – except Eminem – I know he could save me.
Let’s do this fellow life searches – and I will apologise now for the non straight forward absolute carnage that I have no doubt will unfold as I explore – I’m used to it, you may not be, but at least it will provide some light comedy .. probably
Love Me xxxx
The Musings of a Ferrol 