Wrong kind of woman.
I’m the right kind of woman at a distance. The kind you’re inspired by on the internet but hate-to-know in real life. Insufferable women. Dramatic woman. Selfish woman...
Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to get it right the first time. Or the second. To be the kind of woman that makes her parents proud. Or who feels like a woman at all. Maybe it’s because I’m continually a bad woman…
The wrong kind of woman…
I’m the right kind of woman at a distance. The kind you’re inspired by on the internet but hate-to-know in real life. Insufferable women. Dramatic woman. Selfish woman. Can’t let it go, feels it too deeply, wants it too much, won’t stop seeking more, kind of woman.
The same people who would say I’m judging myself too harshly compare their perfect homes against mine– we all know I’m the reference point for someone who just almost pulls it all off. I’m the benchmark disrupter in the Land of Contentment; the one you whisper to in the intoxicated moments that you want to come out, or run away naked to the woods. I hold your secrets– and your projections. I’m the one you ask if I’m really happy, if I’m proud of the bold, courageous choices I’ve made— the same choices you bounce off me— the ones you’d never make, unless you were drunk.
Brave is just another word for foolish– they’d never fuck up their lives for truth like I will. And have. Picket fence Perfect; they Cherry-Pick the pieces of my freedom, high on my highs and distain my lows. They’ll read Glennon Doyle and celebrate her audacity, but won’t stop going to their homophobic church to save their lives.
The messy uncertainty of my life is what they’ll point to when they want to feel relief about not getting the divorce they actually want. When they realize they don’t, actually want to risk it all in the name of honesty, desire or dignity. They don’t want to tell the truth, if this is what it leads to; all my barrenness and grief, a collection of projections sitting on the outside. I’m the one who gets brought up three glasses of wine deep. The one whose house they ask to enter, with venom under their tongue & then ignore me in public. The one who is great invite when you need a reminder that you’ve done it all right.
I’ve grown up in this town– come undone in this town– made something of myself in this town when no one wanted what I had to offer. I’ve let them all in on it— my mistakes, my ignorance, my arrogance. I’m the one who put it all on display, naively so. Paranoid projection is the price you pay.
Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to be set up for success like they were. To get it all right like they have. The simple things would do… like being given a foundation of couth, for one; I’ve prayed earnestly for the ability to pretend so pretty and nicely. A rich dad or husband second.
Isn’t it interesting how being the right kind of woman is really about being attached to the right kind of man?
Every time I have dinner with a dear friend, her kids always ask “Where is your husband? Don’t you want a husband??”
“I had one, actually, and I got rid of him,” I said, the fourth time they asked.
Even little girls are perplexed when you’re not attached to a husband. I never imagined being a wife to a man, actually. Never once did I picture myself on a wedding day until the day came… and even then I wondered how I was supposed to be feeling. Never wanted kids, either. My ex-husband once said I didn’t have a maternal instinct; that I wouldn’t be a good mother, mostly because of all my trauma. He would have been more masculine if only I wore dresses more… if only I cooked more… If only I wasn’t so ambitious… if only I was the right kind of woman, he could be the man he wanted to be.
The sad truth is, I have desperately wanted to be the right kind of woman. I’ve been willing to try. Willing to deny myself. Willing to accept the judgment, internalize the feedback, to take notes. I know how annoying it is to be the wrong kind of woman who wants to be right, too. Insufferable, really. I’ve corrected my dinner-party behavior. I’ve learned to bring a bottle of wine, over-spend on gifts, over-ride my knowing, have that drink & get over the underbelly of it all. I’ve learned to pretend not to see what I see, and never, ever speak to it. I know not to ask if you know who your husband voted for, and if you care how that impacts me. I’ll digest the weight of this grief alone, if you won’t acknowledge it. I’ll tell you I got over it.
I am the wrong kind of woman, it’s true.
Contortionist woman.
Can’t keep up with me, woman.
Whatever you want me to be, woman.
Sorry, woman.
Shape-shifting women.
Shameful woman.
Foolish woman.
Brave woman.
Willing to risk it all for love, woman.
Moves too fast, feels too slow, woman.
Not that fun, woman.
Perfect on paper, woman.
Take her in small doses, woman.
Better when I’m not actually around, woman.
Aw. Isn’t that cute, woman.
I’m not the kind of woman you’d want your daughters to be like or the one you’d want at your parties.
I’ve been trying for so long. Trying too hard. My whole life– choking on their expectations, gagging on their disgust, paranoid about their gaze, turned inside-out trying to be right. I can’t swallow this shame anymore.
Recently I was graced a dignified back-body, made of the most magnificent ancestral mahogany. “Stand up straight,” I was told. “Dignify yourself.”
As I feel my shoulders broaden and my spine get long, I sense those who have come before standing tall, stacking their support shoulder to shoulder. They know something I don’t— and I’m listening. There is a secret here in my heart, even I don’t understand it. Mysterious, symbolic, deeply satisfying. As I look to the many chapters I’ve lived and closed in public, I see the bookshelf outstretched before me. It’s still empty with possibility.
There are no rules to the life I long to live– to the woman I desire to be– I am merely following the nudges she sends me from afar. I am living her dream, perfectly right.
Interesting woman.
Baffling woman.
Mouthy woman.
Complicated woman.
Masculine woman.
Failing at being a woman.
Messy woman.
Mirror woman.
Sexy sometimes woman.
Dignified woman.
Overstimulated woman.
Loving woman.
Dropping my defenses, woman.
Let you have your stories, woman.
Willing to be wrong, woman.
Unconcerned with being any kind of woman.
This Wednesday I am hosting Sacred Sword: A Ritual Workshop Shame Alchemy for Full Self Expression
It’s a workshop for anyone who has ever felt like the wrong kind of person.
Who wants a dose of their inherent dignity.
Who wants to alchemize shame & bring forth their Truth.
Who wants to belong to themselves, muchness and all.
It’s $57, and sliding scale & post-workshop recording is available.
Go ahead and check it out right here. I’d be delighted to have you.
Let it be Easy. Guardian the Good. Live your Liberation.
Big love,
Madison
