Jeune Fille

The Journey of Women.

Disclaimer:

I hesitate to attach gender to the subject of The Journey. For one, I am absolutely certain men undergo a journey-like process in their quest for a full and rewarding life. I can say that I have encountered men who know of struggle and the work of healing, but, they seem to do it differently. I include my own son in this group…a man that I’ve had a daily influence on for over 18 years. Regardless, he is ‘journeying’ in a way that seems true to his gender.

Therefore, my heart, soul and experience speak to The Journey of a Woman, or more accurately, the Growing of a Girl into a Woman.

The roller coaster starts it’s engine around the age of 10-12. The sweet chubby girl starts to elongate, shift and morph into something that, most assuredly, even the girl does not understand.

If being human is a compilation of Mind,Body and Soul – that Soul begins to be dictated by Moods -that permeate, what WAS, a safe and cozy world. Quite unbeknownst to the young girl who loved her dolls or horses, Life, as she knew it, begins to be threatened.

I speak from two perspectives.

One, being a woman of passion, my journey rocketed out of the canon in pure angst. I begin my self destruction at the age of 15 and did not begin to reconcile until 10 years later. In short, the rise and fall of my personal emotional empire took a decade to manifest. The Journey, for me, still continues.

Two, I have had the honor and privilege of growing a young girl into a woman. This work also still continues. My daughter has, for better or worse, been educated in the ways of womanhood through the eyes of a mother that has been at the bottom and worked her way out of the pit. My hope is NOT that my daughter will live a pain free life….she has already experienced the loss of her family through Divorce. My hope is that she will have the knowledge and tools to handle the onslaught of emotional passion brought by adolescence. She is nearly 16 now and has been hearing about “the challenge” for over 6 years. The challenge, as I refer to it, has been introduced in our family as a difficult, but, necessary houseguest. One that will not go away. Our job? To learn to live with it, as successfully as we can, for the time that it is here.

How do all these big lofty psycho theories play out in day to day living. In short, “You will feel like crap for nearly 10 years…during this time, you must discover in what ‘form’ you want to live (jock, preppie, artsy, hipster, etc. etc….)….you will meet your sexual self, you will entertain ‘love’, you will crave independence, you will miss your simple childhood, you must learn soooo much: just. to. get. through. the. day.

and through it all, you will be constantly, CONSTANTLY, threatened by inner demons of Doubt.

Some of these demons are Life-Inflicted. My demons for example, had to do with having an Artist’s passion, the mind of a Thinker, and the physical appearance that did not fit the social norm. My parent’s marriage was stressed and my father was an alcoholic. My mother, with her own demons, was not connected to her emotions. She had the household and a family to manage. I experienced her as cold and unavailable. My alcoholic father was more ’emotional’ and that, was my framework for ‘normal’.

As I’ve said, my daughter’s demons of Loss are Divorce-related. She also has complex emotions and the mind of a thinker. Her passion and creativity were self-evident as a toddler.

Even young woman who have no OUTWARD afflictions staining the soft fuzzy blanket of childhood, will have to deal with negotiating who and what they want to be.

Just walking out the door, the power of hormones will be an unpredictable, undependable; an ever changing mine field of emotions. If the blankie of childhood wasn’t stained before adolescence, very few, if any, will welcome the third decade of life with a clean and clear sense of personal well being. It, frankly, near impossible.

That, is the power of Estrogen – hormonal levels DIRECTLY impacting emotional reality.

Are you 13 and high? 14 and depressed? 15 and suicidal? 16 and pregnant? 17 and homeless? You are NORMAL.

Alcohol, Weed, Sex, Cutting, Overachieving, Anxiety, Panic, Eating Disorders….are all Normal quick FIXES to inner turmoil. Quick. It needs to be NOW. “My distress must be changed to comfort quickly and immediately” – that is the human expectation. Change. The. Painful. Reality = Human Instinct.

You see, since the moment of your Birth, hunger is met with nourishment, cold replaced with warmth, sickness by care, pain with comfort …. That, is the job of the parent, to teach Safety, Dependability, Warmth and Comfort. The Work of Love.

As we transition into our teenaged years, we must begin to care for ourselves.

But wait, WHY would we want to care for ourselves, when someone else can do it?

Realizing we must care for ourselves, is…to the perfect child, that grew up in the perfect home, with the perfect family, in the perfect circumstances….Devastingly Difficult. Human development may be as natural as the moon’s rotation around the earth….but, the transition from being cared FOR….to Independence…leaves each young woman pissed, sad, worried, frightened, or confused….at best.

Imagine the RELIEF that comes with the first sip of alcohol…the love and attention of a boy…the sharp burn of the cut…the heady numbing of weed, the deep down purge of pain with vomiting, or the false satisfaction of well being that comes only with overachieving.

Each and every one of these methods (and I’m certain there are more) are the quick fixes often used against a very real, very difficult challenge. I am here to say, YES, THEY WORK. They will serve you, and for the here and now, they may serve you well. Until they don’t.

I promise you this, as certain as the sun rises and sets…Quick Fixes will NEVER lead to lasting happiness.

I get it. I get it so deeply and so thoroughly, that I’d be lying to say that even now, as an old woman, I can still recall, and fantasize, with sweet accuracy, the relief of quickly changing a bad emotion. (notes from future lessons – you will ALWAYS have a quick-fix for darkness hidden up your sleeve – the goal is to make is harm-Less)

The Journey from Girl to Woman is one designed to make you FEEL alone….which is a HUGE lie your demons tell you….You are part of a very very big process, one that has been In Process for thousands of years, and you will not make it through this life without confronting it.

If you are a young woman in your early teens and life has served you events and circumstances that have robbed you of your safety…. if you are a young woman who’s life has been seemingly flawless……. You are both on the same journey. It’s a question of Now or Later?

To the young woman in crises: You have been GIFTED by this crises. This crises, this ‘bad time’, this out-of-control-am-I-crazy-how-did-this-happen…..is a Gift. You are passionate enough, strong enough, creative enough and special enough, to have been given this opportunity to begin The Journey Young…Fresh…Directly. You, my sweet brave soul, have Honesty on your side.

To the young woman living the ‘flawless’ life: You are working hard, so very very hard. You, despite all outward appearance, have the more difficult job of the two women. Your emotions will stay far, far, away..just out of your grasp. You will jump social hurdles, do the right thing, obey the rules and may continue to LOOK successful for many many years. However, the emotions of a woman are too powerful to avoid. Your fatigue and emotions WILL manifest as all Roots seek Sun. They will look like tumors, broken relationship, estrangements and a disconnect from Joy. Your job, if you’ve pretended towards perfection, will then have to be to Find and Catch your Truth….and from there, begin to experience Life.

Your crises-laden counterpart, that ‘troubled misfit’ that sat next to you in English…THAT girl – now a woman – long ago learned to master those same emotions that now evade you. Flawless Girl, your perfection is continually threatened because your emotions are dressed in costume, learning long ago, never to show themselves as they really are.

Personally, I could not ‘fake’ happiness, and my adolescence was marred with crises. My biggest gift…. as I am well along life’s path… is, and always has been, my direct access to my emotional reality. A gift which came to me wrapped in pain, doubt, fear and self-hatred.

This, was my starting point at the age of 14 and I am now 53. It’s been an amazing, wonderful, awesome journey….filled with, hell, BEGINNING with, periods of Darkness, Shame and Drama. I hesitate to talk too too much about how wonderful life will turn out to be for you, my sweet one. You have no frame of reference for that. I could just as easily tell you how great life on Mars is. Crazy Talk.

What I hope you WILL understand of my words jeune fille, is right NOW, in this life space, YOU are birthing Your Self and it hurts. You feel lost. You should. You have never done this before.

You can do it Now – sharply, brightly, acutely, sickeningly and frighteningly, but with Certainty ….OR, You can do it later…longer, duller, thicker, harder, vaguer, with not as much Clarity.

Obviously, I recommend Now.

I’ll meet you there, I’ll hold you there. I’ll teach you what I know.

ALL you need to do is this:

Stay Alive. Just. Show. Up.

Walking With Wig

She wore a brown wig over her long, but sparse, wispy hair.  The wig didn’t stay on well and she was constantly adjusting it.  No matter how many times she moved it forward, or pushed it up out of her eyes, her natural wiry white hair flowed out underneath and to the sides.  For appearance sake, it resembled a hat, more than a wig.

Midway through her 80th decade, this woman presented in my professional landscape like many others – strapped on a stretcher.  As an ER nurse, I am desensitized to visual extremes.  While, at the same time, I am tuned into visual nuance with an intensity that is difficult to match.  My new patient, with her tilted muddy brown wig, attracted me from the onset.

With her appearance, came a degree of judgement of what I would encounter when I entered the room.  I fully expected to engage with this individual, who was trapped in the confines of Alzheimer’s disease, on the outer levels of rational.

She did not know what state she was in, nor did she know why she was in the emergency room.  Dressed in a red flannel shirt, polyester stretchy pants with two different white sneakers on the appropriate feet, she laid on her bed with her eyes closed.

From the first question I asked her, down to my very last exchange with her, the response was unpredictable.  Yet, regardless of WHAT she said, every single word she spoke was with clarity and great intent and often with an accompanying wig adjustment.  Her intellect, obviously crafted throughout a lifetime, was evident in her vocabulary.

Every time I asked her how she was, I received a different answer.   I soon found myself drawn to  her, simply to see what she’d say.

“How do you THINK I am, laying in this uncomfortable bed!”  She denied any distress whatsoever; aside from being in the emergency department that is.  She had absolutely no complaints.  She was sent to the ER from the Alzheimer’s unit of a local nursing home because: “she had fallen while walking in the hallway”.  Nursing homes have a responsibility to ensure –  ENSURE – that their residents are kept healthy. Any abhorrent event requires them to send the resident to the ER to rule out broken ribs, pneumonia, or a urinary tract infection.  All these diagnosis are arrived at via multiple tests, sometimes repeatedly, thus resulting in lengthy stays.

Wig vacillated between cooperation and irritation.  She was able to get up out of the bed and walk.  Sharp-tongued, she admonished me continually throughout the day, starting with  “I can get up by myself!”.  Hunched over,with an odd combination of movements and holding onto a walker, Wig took off down the hall.  Nearly every bone in her body was twisted, bent, or locked into place through obvious joint surgeries.  Yet her biggest inhibitor was her Wig which moved about with every jerky step this fast moving woman could make.

Oh, and by the way, she was a lifelong nurse.

I discovered I held a beautiful gem in my hands with each and every prickly interaction.  Wig spoke with clarity and accuracy (confirmed by nursing home) of her nursing career, where she trained and her speciality.  She looked me dead in the eye and declined the catheterization of her bladder to obtain a sterile urine sample stating “Why in the world would you want me to do THAT, when I can just clean my boo with wipes”….and she was 100% correct.  Catheterization is reserved for those who are physically inhibited to clean themselves.  Wig  got up out of the bed and provided crystal clear sparkling urine.

Yet, she didn’t remember asking for the tea I’d brought her, she didn’t know what state she was in, she liked me, she didn’t like me.   As afternoon turned into evening, she became more agitated and wanted to walk continually which is problematic in a busy ER.  I had two options: “force” her to stay in her room which had a good chance of irritating my passionate Wig to the point of restraint albeit physical or chemical, or I could ‘let her be”.  This is when I discovered that Wig preferred rolling chairs to walkers.  Indeed, she could get around even faster.  Spastic, faster and scary, it was during these Walks with Wig, that she spoke about her nursing career with clarity and confirmed accuracy.  She was also very sweet and pleasant.

She believed me when I asked her to help me “fold laundry” (to keep her occupied and safe while I did paperwork).  “I don’t know why I’m helping you when I’ve got a household of my own to keep” as she angrily, but, meticulously, folded  the pile of socks from our geriatric resource bin.

At one point, I gently touched Wig’s wig to help her adjust it.  She slapped my hand away and said “I don’t care if my hair shows, I’m OLD for crying out loud”  Wig went onto say she’d wore a wig for 15 years, had ‘at least’ 10 or 20 of them and I could get my own wig anywhere.  During this willing  and open wig-exchange, her irritation at my Wig-norance was self-evident.

“For god’s sake, HOW in the world did you get to be 53 and NOT know about wigs?”

Wig left our ER with a clean bill of health.  She was in a good mood when the ambulance came to pick her up and I actually never said good-bye to her as I was caring for my other patients.  It’s apparent to me I’ve no intent of letting Wig go.

Wig was a gift.  Wig IS a gift, and Wig is very very challenging as Wig doesn’t care one whit about what anyone thinks of her.

I am a nurse; I am also an artist, drawn to fresh perspective, or as some would say, altered realities. Abstract thinking is a skill I hone.   I also watched my beloved grandmother succumb to Alzheimer’s disease.  So, it is not a stretch to imagine my future aligning with Wig.   Further, to effectively practice the Art of Nursing, one MUST walk in another one’s shoes.

I saw Wig as a visual gem: mismatched, crooked, wrinkled, vacant and emotionally precise.  Although she is not connected to the here and now in any dependable way, it is clear that Wig still contributes to this world: opening eyes, broadening smiles, evoking curiosity, disproving judgments and trying patience.   The beauty of nursing is that, from time to time, it gives back to us in spades.

I received way more from Wig than I gave her and she could care less WHAT I gave her  (which, by the way, is a requirement of Sainthood). Among the many enlightments I received, I treasure most, now knowing the underestimated value of  a decent and varied wig collection.

“They even ‘got em at the grocery store!”