Lets talk about … My fine line

There is a fine line, at least in my pretty little head, between submitting to someone else’s will and choosing to find happiness in someone else’s happiness.

You might need to read that one again. It is a really, really, fine line.

This is a really complicated issue. At least for me. The concept of submitting to the will of another is abhorrent to me. It makes my blood run cold and every single cell in my body rebels against it. As a woman especially, I harks back to millennia of women without an avenue to exercise their own will. Similarly though the concept of finding happiness in someone else’s happiness reeks of the feminine mystique, of 1850′s housewives socially trapped into living only for their husband’s and children.

The key here, I guess, is choice. Choice is what we have been fighting for, isn’t it? Somehow some choices still seem to betray myself, my gender. The difference between an enlightened, empowered choice and a choice that flies in the face of my freedoms and rights? Awareness.

Conscious choice makes all the difference. Conscious choice is the only thing that makes the life of a modern wife and stay at home mother different to that of her 1950′s counterpart. I am choosing fulfillment in my role as domestic goddess. They had no other option.

I chose to marry because it was important to my husband. Not out of fear. I chose to remain at home raising my son, because it is honestly the hardest, toughest, most fulfilling thing I have ever undertaken. And I don’t back away from a challenge. What makes my choices, in my mind, revolutionary and rebellious and empowered is that I am aware of every choice I make. I put my life under the microscope and analyse who I am in the face of my freedoms and choices.

I walk a fine line. My priorities and daily tasks are essentially for my family. My self inquiry, my honesty with (and about) what goes on for me in my heart and head in response to this, that is my saving grace. Conscious choice is the difference between oppressed and living breathing empowerment.

I bet I am not the only woman steadily walking this line. What lines do you walk?

(excuse the late post, I am trying a new parenting style today and it is labor intensive.)

What I’m not

Some of my favorite bloggers posted recently what they are not. They both happen to be interesting authentic women who are in the ‘must read’ section of my reader for a reason. Go check them out.

I am not the tidiest person. My house will be presentable when people arrive (unless I consider you family, in which case I am liable to throw the tea towel at you to wipe while I wash) but my kitchen bench is my achillies heel. Well that and the kitchen sink (I tried to have it shined every night before bed last year… didn’t work for me) and the laundry. Oh, and the baby toys. AND our shoes tossed in a messy heap by the door. You get the picture.

I am not a trend whore. You will see classic cuts, plenty of jeans (I own about 6 pairs and wear 3 pretty much every week), jackets, t-shirts and blouses, dresses, almost everything A-line and empire wasted in my closet. A million scarves, too. I love scarves. You won’t find any hoodies, ‘fierce’ shoes, neon, shoulder pads, miniskirts/dresses.

I am not afraid of speaking up. Sometimes, more so these days than before, I bite my tongue. Not because I am afraid of confrontation. Few people do confrontation as well as I do. I know I will be fine. I just hate the fall-out, the moodiness, the cold shoulder, the bullshit.

I am not a fan of antipasto or beer. Olives and capers and beer. YUCK! The thought of these, let alone the smell is enough to turn my stomach. Needless to say these are 3 of my husband’s favourite things.

I am not at peace with the idea of being married. I know, I know. I am crazy. An idealist and a feminist to a fault. I get it. But still my inner suffragette and my inner rebel still hate the idea. I’ll let you know when they quieten. I’m not holding my breath though.

I am not scared of ugliness. Not scared of mine. Not scared of yours. I’m not afraid of people discovering the black muck that lurks in the corners of my psyche. It is one of the best ice breakers and the quickest way to a deep and meaningful discussion – my favourite kind.

Despite living spitting distance from the beach, I am not a beach goddess. I never had the body for it and I hate the sand getting everywhere it doesn’t belong. Namely inside my swimming costume. I hate it when the sand is so hot it burns and yet i can’t stand it when it gets chilly or a wind blows sand on my towel. On the other hand give me the mountains any day. Mountain air fills my lungs and unlocks my soul.

I am not the jealous type. Never have been. If who I am and how I make him feel isn’t enough to keep him, then he is free to leave. If he finds a woman better at supporting his dreams and his schedule, similarly, I will be throwing rice at the wedding. I point out beautiful women I know he will appreciate. I am not insecure about him talking to other women in a bar. I don’t envy other women. I know from seeing clients that the most successful, beautiful, driven women have demons big enough to balance out the bliss in their lives.

I am not against cooking every day. I actually aspire to cook something, anything, every single day. I feel connected to the people I love and the circle of life when I am lovingly preparing a meal for them from fresh ingredients. I don’t use packet mixes, boxed cake mix or  sauces in a jar. They have their place, but I have the time and inclination to make my own. I could never, ever go back to chocolate topping from a bottle.

As I am typing my husband and son and throwing their 2 cents worth at me, so this could clearly become an essay or a series lol. But I think this is enough.

What at you not?

Taking stock

9 days into marriage and I feel, well….. nothing. Nothing different, anyway.

All my married friends have told me that marriage changes everything and nothing all at once. This is true for my husband (it still feels weird using that title), but I seem to have only got the ‘nothing’ part. Well, other than my immune system completely crashing, that is. But still, it is early days yet.

A dear friend  (a very wise one at that) reminded me at various stages throughout the reception that a marriage, like any other ritual, is symbolic. That it is powerful and will take time to integrate. Truer words have never been spoken, but I do wonder if you must endorse the ritual or simply participate to truly be changed by it.

I have been thinking a lot since the wedding. About love and marriage, not to mention the events of the weekend itself.  So much took place. So many virtually all those we care about were in the one place at the one time. That alone is a mother-load of quality time to process. Add to that potent mix the vows, speeches, drunken deep and meaningful conversations, poignant one liners, interesting situations (often interesting drunken situations) and you have too many memories to process, to many moments to take into my heart, in 9 short days.

My response so far has been to write – a hell of a lot. I have listened to my old favourite music. I have rearranged the kitchen and my bedroom. Lost my appetite. Done a truckload of laundry and spoken to my girlfriends heaps. There is nothing out of the ordinary in the list other than the laundry. Damn I hate laundry! Oh and the appetite.

As for married life? Is it safe to assume married me will be a thinner washer-woman? I hope not. The jury’s still out on married life.  When I see it I’ll let you know.

Love is…

I was married this past weekend. Did you see my vows? It tells you something about the sensitivity of my husband or perhaps his skills as an orator to say that his vows barely left a dry eye in the house while mine got our teary guests laughing (not only because I had no voice and sounded like a B-grade sex line).

Now I have never believed that love was blind, but my fortnight of hell – the two weeks leading up to the wedding – and the 3 days since has clearly shown me something all together different. Love is stupid.

Love is stupid AND blind. Love is actually borderline insane. Love cannot read the writing on the wall. Even if it wanted to.

Before the wedding my body began a revolt. I got a cold. The glands in my throat began to swell, swallowing became difficult. In the final days when I should have been organizing final details (like my now non-existent guest book) I was curled up in bed trying to convince a snotty toddler than ‘Mummy sleeping’ was a fun game. I trod on a rusty thumbtack. I pulled a chunk of glass from that same foot a few days later. My chin broke out in pimples two days before the wedding and the day before the nuptials, the day my guests arrived, I began to lose my voice.

In addition to this, the recent flooding in Victoria washed away the only thing I had my heart set on – purple hydrangeas. So the décor was changed from mauve to neutral to cover all possibilities. Fantastic thinking too, because we ended up with green flowers. Yes, Green! They looked fantastic though. Bless our outstanding florist. My parents had their breaks fail on the way to the wedding. No I am not kidding. Oh, and the power went off 30 minutes before I was to walk down the aisle – while I was in the middle of getting my hair done. So my hair was finished off in my parents’ converted bus (it was stationary by now, don’t worry). One of our musicians (a dear friend) dislocated his shoulder. Lucky for us he was staunch enough to drive to the mountains and play guitar all with a shoulder that should have been in a sling!

My point? Yes I do have one – other than to whine about all of the tiny things that drove me insane – is this; if so many things were to go wrong in the lead up to any other event I would have reconsidered. I would have pondered the possibility that the universe/god/whoever was trying to tell me something. I would have read the writing on the wall.

But alas, love is blind and stupid. Instead I had a wonderful wedding. And that night suffered from a gastro bug and since then my cold has only gotten worse, my voice hasn’t returned and I have developed a rash, all over my body. In short – I am allergic to marriage.

If love hadn’t blinded me and robbed me of my intelligence, I would read the writing on the wall.

Tying the knot…

When I agreed to finally end our 5 year engagement and tie the knot, I didn’t expect to have any knots in my stomach. And I don’t. Marriage has been inconsequential in my relationship from the very very early days when we both knew we would be together forever. Since we actually got together after a looong and very fucked up (excuse the French, but no-body could think of a more appropriate term) courtship, nobody has questioned our commitment to each other.

I am looking forward to our wedding weekend. 2 sleeps until we leave for our venue in the mountains and 3 until I am a married woman. Or so my bridesmaids and excited guests keep telling me on Facebook, blogs, SMS and phone calls. I am excited, though not for the reasons they expect. I am nervous, too. But I am not nervous about the declaration of my love for a wonderful man – I am worried that my brownies will not live up to their awesome reputation. Honestly. I am considering making another batch.

A dear friend blogged today about her nervousness regarding my nuptials. I get nervous, only because everybody else is. I am afraid I am missing something. What have I forgotten? Will I get to the top of the stairs and the beginning of the aisle and have the gravity of my marriage hit me like a ton of bricks? Should I be freaking out now, so I don’t later on? I am unworried about my vows. I wrote them in one sitting, with very few revisions. I have known what I wanted to say for the past 5 years. I say these words to my future husband regularly. I tell him what he means to me, beyond the ‘I love you’ so often that we need to find new challenges in our relationship because we are so confident in our union.

Weddings are important. I realise this now, I didn’t when I had panic attacks about guest lists shortly after becoming engaged. I didn’t when 6 months ago I picked this coming weekend –  the weekend of the 5 year anniversary of our relationship – as our wedding day. Weddings are important because they are about love. They are about a couple so in love that their love has overflown their hearts and they want to share it with their friends and family.

Sitting here in my state of relative calm, a secret smile graces my lips. I may the picture of tranquility, but I am sick. I was struck last night with a throat infection. And twice in the past week I have extracted objects from my foot. I am not nervous, but perhaps my body has different ideas.

Things you probably don’t know about me.

I have a million blog posts floating around in my pretty-little-head, all of which are too introspective, profound or unformed at this point for me to write articulately about. So I figured I would write the least profound post that is in me to write – a little about me.

1. I am getting married ridiculously soon.
2. I am not a morning person. I am definitely a night owl.
3. In fact when left entirely to my own devices with no responsibilities I wake at 11am and sleep at 4am.
4. No one has ever figured out what colour my eyes are. Blue, green, blue-green or blue-grey.
5. I make pretty shit-hot brownies. Over the weekend a naked man told me so. Really.
6. I will do pretty much anything for honey saffron chocolates.
7. Diets don’t work for me. My body and I are on much better terms when I respect and fuel her.
8. I used to sing. I wasn’t half bad either.
9. The song I sing most now is twinkle twinkle.
10. As hard as I try I simply cannot understand men.
11. Anything I can’t understand bugs hell out of me.
12. I swear entirely too much. So I cringe now that my son has reached the mimicking phase.
13. I have studied mediumship, seership and card reading. Not kidding.
14. I started meditating just after I turned 15.
15. A decade of meditation has mellowed me, but I still have quite a temper when you get me mad.
16. I don’t hold grudges. But I learn my lesson.
17. I used to have a side of the bed… now so long as I have a comfy pillow I’m happy.
18. I can rock hats, sunnies and fascinators, but I find it hard to find shoes to suit my feet.
19. My phone is perpetually nearly flat. I can’t work out if that is because I use to so much or if I don’t charge my phone often enough.
20. I am like Sheldon when it comes to my seat on the couch.
21. I am a sucker for tattoos (tasteful), facial hair (stylish stubble or a sexy beard) and strong hands.
22. I have worn fishnets, wings, a dog collar and a halo. But not all at once. And not all for fancy dress.
23. My favourite piece of fashion are my pink pumps. I love them so much I am wearing them to my wedding.
24. I have scars, stretch marks and a ‘cherry spot’ birth mark.
25. I have sucked snot from my sick infants nose, and yet olives still make me gag.
26. I have one younger sister and two girlfriends I would fly to their side anywhere in the world if they asked.
27. So, I kind of have 3 sisters.
28. I was born on the same day (not year) as Audrey Hepburn.
29. The simplest things soothe my soul. The sound and smell of the beach, rain, a full moon, a gentle kiss, a cup of tea, a great song.
30. I love quotes. These are my current faves:

• • A woman can say more in a sigh than a man can say in a sermon. ~Arnold Haultain
  • Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be. ~ Clementine Paddelford
  • A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful. ~Karl Kraus

Landslide…

If you are anything like me when the going gets tough you get tea, ice cream and your favourite song. This song has soothed my frayed nerves as I approached and crossed the boundaries of my comfort zone again and again. So it is no shock to me that I crave it now (along with Magnums and sweet tea) as I am super-fast approaching my nuptials.

The power of lyrics has always moved me. Great lyrics move me as much as Shakespeare and Eliot. The readings at our upcoming wedding are lyrics and my favourite poem by Donne and choosing songs for the ceremony took far more deliberation than my outfit. Such is the importance I place on heartfelt lyrics. I have no idea what inspired Stevie to write Landslide, but I have interpreted it to relate to parenthood, partnership, womanhood, teenage fears, friendship over the course of my love affair with it. Like a pair of comfy jeans or an old friend, it comforts me because we have known each other for the longest time. (I am certain my mother listened to this song when I was in the womb.)

This song, to me, speaks to love. Real love. Deep love. The deepest love. The kind that scares you to your very core. The kind of love that makes you not want to move a muscle in-case you break the spell. The kind of love that threatens to paralyse you. It talks about the complications that love can pose and the difficulties you are bound to face together. It talks about how we define ourselves by who loves us, and how well we love them back. Of the landslide of emotion that threatens to overwhelms us, that we pray we can withstand.

I hope you like it half as much as I do. Landslide, Stevie Nicks.

I took my love and I took it down

I climbed a mountain and I turned around

And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills

Well the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky what is love

Can the child within my heart rise above

Can I sail through the changing ocean tides

Can I handle the seasons of my life

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing ’cause I built my life around you

But time makes you bolder, Children get older

I’m getting older too

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing ’cause I built my life around you

But time makes you bolder, Children get older

I’m getting older, too. Well I’m getting older too

So, take this love and take it down

Year and if you climb a mountain and ya turn around

And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills

Well the landslide brought me down

And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills

Well maybe, Well maybe

Maybe the landslide will bring you down

Lets talk about masturbation

The formative teenage years for an average girl involves slumber parties. Lots of slumber parties. Slumber parties consist of junk food, secret-girls-business and truth and dare.

I never performed a dare in truth and dare. Ever. There was no need and no point. My face is incapable of hiding strong emotion, and I always considered myself an open book. I chose ‘truth’ every time, and I told to truth too. I answered every question faithfully bar one, which was invariably delivered with an embarrassed blush and giggle; “Have you ever masturbated?”

‘No. Unequivocally, absolutely not!’ Would be my response, except in teenage language, which would probably sound more like ‘Yeah sure! Like I would do that – it’s gross!’ Because it was acceptable to steal alcohol from your parents, spread rumours at school, have sex, smoke pot or have a crush on your friends brother, but definitely not ok to touch yourself.

We had all suffered through ‘the talk’ with our mothers and sex education at school. ‘Sex education’ would probably best be re-named harm-minimisation for sexual trauma and dysfunction for all of the warnings and fear-mongering that goes on. We learned exclusively of the risks and negative outcomes/aspects of sex; teenage pregnancy, STIs, rape, regret. Dolly doctor clearly explained things like discomfort during first time sex and feelings of inadequacy during intercourse. So all in all sex in our minds was devoid of pleasure though we were convinced that it would get better.

Pleasure or no, sex was still high on the ‘to-do’ list. It was a mark or maturity, status, fearlessness. We wanted to ‘get it over with’ since we all agreed it was ‘backwards’ to wait until we were married to lose our virginities.

In the end our initial sexual experiences were everything Dolly doctor and out sex-ed teachers had attempted to prevent. A number of studies have shown why; We were never taught about pleasure, sexual curiosity, foreplay, erotica. No body encouraged us to masturbate it was seen as dirty and slutty, where as male masturbation was seen as normal. The tiny proportion of girls who were initiated into the positive aspects of their sexuality are more likely to have safe sex and enjoy the experience, as opposed to the other 75% who felt pressured or rushed into physical intimacy.

As we matured into adult women with healthy sex lives masturbation is more acceptable, as is erotica. Yet is it still more widely acceptable for men to masturbate than women. And certainly it is still taboo for young women to touch themselves.

With further studies showing that for the most part teenagers use contraception as faithfully as adults and have sex most often in loving relationships, why are we still teaching our young women about the dangers to the exclusion of the pleasures. Wouldn’t we as women (mothers, mentors, aunties, big sisters, friends) do well to teach our teenage sisters the power of their bodies, its capacity for pleasure and that their desire is healthy? It certainly would have changed my life.

The laundry list of unspoken topics

By nature these experiences fly in the face of the accepted bounds of womanhood. They aren’t expected of the innocent maiden, the loving wife or the nurturing mother. And let’s face it, society at large still has some difficulty dealing with femininity outside of those roles. These experiences have often been ascribed to the ‘undesirable’ facets of womanhood; the unmarried, the lecherous, the wild and the mysteries of our reproductive organs. In reality making these experiences taboo or unspoken is destructive, riddling our female psyche with guilt, shame, inadequacy and fear.

So in the interest of catharsis, inspired by a few honest and relieving conversations recently with my girlfriends, here are some experiences I think belong in a guide-book for women;

1. Foreplay isn’t optional.
2. Masturbation isn’t wrong. Getting to know what feels good is incredibly important.
3. Using a vibrator too often can actually desensitise you to orgasm with a real penis.
4. Watching porn isn’t just for guys. Well maybe porn is, erotica isn’t.
5. Despite the foreplay and knowing what feels good, sometimes your juices simply wont flow. And that’s ok.
6. You may hate your period, but trust me you will miss it when it is gone.
7. Breasts can leak. And not only when you are pregnant or breastfeeding.
8. Rape is never, ever your fault.
9. Your body and emotions are intricately linked. Emotions (and the hormones they release) change your skin, hair, breasts, vagina and more.
10. Many women get very amorous during their period.
11. Just because you are in a relationship doesn’t mean you aren’t attracted to people other than your partner.
12. As wild as your youth is, you probably wont regret it as you get older.
13. Women have a ‘hens’ or ‘bachelotette’ party for a reason; it is scary to think of farewelling your singledom and loving only one person forever more.
14. It takes work to keep the fire alive in a long-term relationship.
15. Labour can be a sensual experience, some woman reach orgasm giving birth.
16. Labour involves blood, a number of people looking closely at and physically inspecting your vagina.
17. Motherhood doesn’t automatically bestow infinite patience.
18. Bonding isn’t instant. It is a process. Postnatal depression isn’t a choice or your fault.
19. Breastfeeding isn’t always easy and bottle-feeding isn’t wrong.
20. Breastfeeding in public is simply feeding a child. Nothing more, nothing less.
21. Sometime mothers resent, dislike and tire of their children.
22. Sometimes mothers love one child more than the other/s.
23. It isn’t easy to consistently put the needs of a child before your own. At times it is soul crushing and gut wrenching.
24. Peri-menopause typically lasts 7 to 10 years. So can post-menopause. It can be a 15 year ride ladies!
25. Menopause is supposedly the single day where you haven’t had a period of 12 months.  Sometimes your cycle will resume even after a break of more than a year.
26. Menopause can actually cause ‘shrinkage’ of the vulvar and vagina, which can lead to painful sex.
27. The first thing the Dr will ask you when you go to see them about menopause is “tell me about your mother’s experience…” So… go talk to your Mum!
28. After Menopause your vagina is considered a ‘use it or lose it’ situation. Sex increases blood flow to the area and keeps your vagina healthy, and boots your immune system.

So what have I forgotten? What do you wish was talked about before you discovered it the hard way?? I would love to hear your experience.

Unspoken

There are a number of things that we, as women, were never really told. The list of things we don’t discuss is longer still. Some relatively universal experiences (that could easily be compiled into a handbook if you are looking for a business idea) are thrust upon us without so much as a warning. Worse still is that there is no clear lifeline to help us understand what we experienced or how we feel. Any woman over 15 knows, to some degree, what I am talking about. Every woman struggles with some aspect of her womanly experience until she is about to burst and finally confides in a girlfriend, who opposed to being outraged, relates to her experience with great relief.

This phenomena is all around us for one reason. Nobody is talking about the things that actually affect women on a daily basis.

We discuss paid maternity leave (which I support by the way) as though it will, upon implementation, magically make motherhood valued in society. We discuss equal pay in the workforce as though a woman in her child bearing years is hired as easily as a fertile man. We discuss the new models of marriage, where the man knows how to turn on the vacuum, as though such changes magically help us deal with the daily grind of partnership. They don’t. They won’t. And for the most part these grand ideals and overarching themes don’t effect us nearly as much as knowing how to have a proper discussion with your partner about money. Or sex.

On the subject of sex, why is it that once taboo sexual practices such as spanking (which rests firmly under the banner of BDSM by the way), are considered appropriate fodder for radio add campaigns, when taboos covering femininity are still firmly in place?

I for one am sick of bitching about it to my partner and friends. I am irreverent, but my heart is true and my skin sufficiently thick enough. Watch this space, because I will be speaking about the unspoken. I don’t mean to offend, I am just tired of my experience being classified as offensive.

Hard decisions are rare

Some say that life is full of hard decisions. I disagree. I think there are half a dozen or so choices we make in life that really shape our direction. We put so much emphasis on little choices, fooling ourselves into believing that the outcome will matter in 5 years. I bet you can’t even recall most of the choices you made 5 years ago. I know I can’t.

The simple way to know if the decision you are faced with will matter in 5 years, or shape your life is this;

Can you make another choice if it goes pear-shaped?

Is it permanent?

Will it shatter your view of the world completely and replace it with a radically new one?

If the answer is ‘No’ to these questions, then I hazard a guess that it really isn’t a hard decision. It is probably simply a decision you wish you didn’t have to make. Either get clarity on what you really want, get more information or delay making the decision all together. Oh, and the rest of the stuff that goes to hell without you making a specific decision about it, probably couldn’t have been avoided. So they aren’t hard decisions either.

So next time you are having a hard time choosing, try putting it in perspective. The decision will get a whole lot easier.

My forgiving habit

I am in a habit of letting go, of forgiving. I am slow to anger and almost always ‘talk  it out’ with the other when I feel wronged. I even (much to my partner’s frustration) sit down and have that same frank discussion when I feel someone else is upset with me. I have a deep aversion to bottling things up. I hate repressing emotion and I cannot bear to hold a grudge.

This was possibly the hardest habit I have ever formed, and it is the greatest gift I ever gave myself.

I remember what living in a sess-pool of my own angst felt like. I remember hating someone so much it made me physically sick when I saw them in person (true story). I remember anger, seething rage and shame colouring my every decision and word. Although I didn’t know it at the time, I made the choice to feel that way when I refused to let go. The indescribable freedom I claimed through forgiveness forged my resolve in that instant never to carry a grudge again.

Forgiveness is simple, but not necessarily easy. In fact it can be excruciating hard, until you know how. Once it becomes a habit you find yourself restless, desperate for ways to let go of what hurts you.

Here is what I have learned about forgiveness so far:

• Emotional pain is there for a reason. It is telling us something is left undone; something to do, something to learn, something to say.
• To move towards forgiveness you must first acknowledge the pain you are feeling AND feel it. If you are forgiving more than an argument with a loved one, this could mean you curl into the fetal position or cry tears of rage. Either way only way forward is through it. It won’t be pretty or a walk in the park, but it is no worse than living with the suppressed pain indefinitely.
• You must forgive yourself before you forgive the other. You did the best you could with the information and resources you had at the time. Shit happens. You can’t control everything, be gentle with yourself. You’re ok.
• In time you can forgive the other. They did the best they could with the information and resources they had at the time. It may not have been ‘right’, it certainly wasn’t ideal, but it is done.

I can forgive much, but I am not an expert. There are things I am sure would shatter my resolve to forgive. There are situations I cannot fathom, let alone let go of effortlessly. But while my life is in a comfortable capital city and all my family members are healthy, I feel I have no excuse but to let go.