Outward beauty is not enough; to be attractive a woman must use words, wit, playfulness, sweet-talk, and laughter to transcend the gifts of Nature ~ Petronius
I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a woman. This thought, this question, has been the last residue of the gunk I've been carrying around from my ill fated marriage... it's the last wound yet to heal - perhaps because it's the deepest most critically placed one. Somewhere in all the lies and manipulation and neglect I lost my womanhood. In my mind I became a type of androgynous 500lb bearded lady circus freak - a funny image I know but that's what I saw when I looked in the mirror. It didn't matter how perfectly I put on my makeup - it didn't matter what clothes I wore - it didn't matter how I wore my hair. It didn't matter that down deep inside of me where all good things are supposed to matter I was a good person. It didn't matter I was witty and smart. It didn't matter I was loving and kind and patient. It didn't matter I could be sassy and flirty. It didn't matter I could cook a fantastic dinner or raise good kids or make love with my whole heart. Nothing I did, nothing I was mattered or made a difference. He rejected me anyway - that potentially fatal wound to the heart
There is in every true woman's heart, a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity ~ Washington Irving
He just plain didn't desire me. For years, probably the last four of our marriage, sex became a near non existent thing in our relationship. We'd try - or I should say I would initiate... and nothing would happen. He just physically wouldn't/couldn't respond. I would smile and say it was ok, that I understood - a pain stabbing into my heart, a pain I hid from him. I'd go back to my celibate existence... waiting for the right moment - the perfect opportunity to try again. Months would pass and I'd think surely it would be ok. Surely he'd be able to and then we'd go through the whole scene again. He'd say nothing worked - not solo, not movies, not magazines - it isn't you he'd say it was him... and once again I'd smile and offer reassurances - all the while feeling less and less attractive and sexy - little pieces of me falling away and dying....
A really plain woman is one who, however beautiful, neglects to charm ~ Edgar Saltus
So there I am left: neglected, abandoned, discarded, confused. I'd never really been told I was beautiful - not by my family, not by my husband. I've always tried with my own children to compliment them on their appearance - to tell them they are handsome or pretty - to express it as a matter of fact. No one should ever grow up not believing in their own attractiveness. I remember the first time someone said I was beautiful. I had taken my baby daughter for one of her checkups and the doctor had just finished examining her - she was sitting on my lap and he was holding her hand and he just very reverently said, "She's very beautiful..." and then he looked up at me and softly said, "...just like her mother." That was new to me. If people before had ever considered me attractive they'd never told me. It was unfamiliar territory for me and I think I stammered a "why thank you" in reply. He may have just been being polite - but there was something in the way he said it that made me feel he meant it - and it made me feel beautiful. I've never forgotten it... not the words or the look or the feeling. It's amazing what a profound impact something so simple can have on someone.
Man loves little and often, woman much and rarely ~ Giorgio Basta
So by the time my ex husband comes home and decides he needs time for himself - needs to live alone and separate on a more permanent basis, I am already on the edge... already doubting myself and questioning my attractiveness... wondering what's wrong with me... feeling like less than a woman - feeling like nothing really - feeling like a husk, a shell. I'm lonely, in dire need of physical touch that's paired with an emotional connection. I'm empty. And then I find out the truth; I discover in a very undercover, clandestine way that my poor impotent husband was, in fact, having an affair. It wasn't him... it wasn't him at all - it had never been him. He was capable - very capable - of having sex... of, forgive my crudeness, getting it up. It was, actually, in fact me! It had been me all along - he could only lie beside me limp and unresponsive because he didn't find me attractive. It was then the transformation was complete... I'd officially become the most ufuckable person on the face of the earth.
Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood ~ Oscar Wilde
It's been two and a half years since he left, a year since the divorce, and I'm still carrying around this shit. I've slowly reclaimed much of my life but this, this is the trouble spot for me. I still carry this around - sometimes I look in the mirror and I still see the shadow of the 500lb bearded lady circus freak staring back at me. She just won't completely go away... she taunts me, tells me I'll always be alone, always be unlovable, always be unattractive, always be unworthy. She saps my strength and keeps picking at the wound and that's why it doesn't ever heal. I have to find a way to shut her up... send her back to the sideshow with all the other freaks - banish her skanky ass once and for all. Any ideas?
I will never be the woman with the perfect hair, who can wear white and not spill on it ~ Sex and the City ~ Spoken by character Carrie, played by Sarah Jessica Parker
I'm an exceptional woman and I am flawed... and it's within those flaws, those imperfections, that I attain the unique essence that is me. I can be such a silly little goober... I have quirks and little habits - sometimes funny, sometimes annoying, but all me. There are many qualities that make me, as a human being, a great person. I know I have value... something I've worked hard to rediscover - I've practiced a lot in the mirror, Stuart Smalley style, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and, doggonit, people like me!" And in a funny little pitiful way it's worked. I no longer doubt myself like I did... no longer question my who I am or what I want or where I want to go. I know all these things now... but one thing still remains elusive and out of my reach...
When a woman is openly bad she is then at her best ~ Latin Proverb
There is this other side to me... or really this other component to who I am and it's all tied up in being, essentially, a woman, and expressing that and exploring what it all means. I am a coquette - a flirty little tease... and I love that part of me but she's been lost...There is such a bad girl inside of me... she wants out and I don't know how to unlock the door - she's so fragile, so breakable - and I don't know how to let her grow and explore and thrive without shattering into a million pieces. What if the next hurt can't be healed? What if the next hurt does her in? Then the rest of who I am is lost too. She doesn't trust her beauty or her attractiveness. She doesn't know if it's real or a falsehood - it might all be just pretty words said to soothe and placate her. She's felt so damned disposable and what she truly fears is that she really might, in truth, actually be... she might actually be worthless as a woman... she might actually be the most unlovable, unfuckable freak on the planet. That fear is what lurks... hovers in the back alley of my mind...
The great question that has never been answered and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is "What does a woman want?" ~ Sigmund Freud
I could have told good ol' Sigmund the answer - I've talked about it before here. A woman simply wants to be cherished. She wants to know that who she is - in her totality as a woman - is loved, appreciated, desired. It's not about being appreciated to be complete... it's about an already complete woman being accepted and valued for just that - being complete. I want someone to be able to see me - ME - and find that sensual and alluring, comforting and kind, witty and wonderful. I want to look into someone's eyes and see me reflected in them... not his reflection of me. This is the last frontier for me... the last vestige of healing - but maybe this part of me has been the biggest causality in the war. Maybe it's lost to me forever... perhaps I'll never know how it feels to be cherished above all others... cherished in the only way a woman can be by the man she loves - the man who loves her.
I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a woman. This thought, this question, has been the last residue of the gunk I've been carrying around from my ill fated marriage... it's the last wound yet to heal - perhaps because it's the deepest most critically placed one. Somewhere in all the lies and manipulation and neglect I lost my womanhood. In my mind I became a type of androgynous 500lb bearded lady circus freak - a funny image I know but that's what I saw when I looked in the mirror. It didn't matter how perfectly I put on my makeup - it didn't matter what clothes I wore - it didn't matter how I wore my hair. It didn't matter that down deep inside of me where all good things are supposed to matter I was a good person. It didn't matter I was witty and smart. It didn't matter I was loving and kind and patient. It didn't matter I could be sassy and flirty. It didn't matter I could cook a fantastic dinner or raise good kids or make love with my whole heart. Nothing I did, nothing I was mattered or made a difference. He rejected me anyway - that potentially fatal wound to the heart
There is in every true woman's heart, a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity ~ Washington Irving
He just plain didn't desire me. For years, probably the last four of our marriage, sex became a near non existent thing in our relationship. We'd try - or I should say I would initiate... and nothing would happen. He just physically wouldn't/couldn't respond. I would smile and say it was ok, that I understood - a pain stabbing into my heart, a pain I hid from him. I'd go back to my celibate existence... waiting for the right moment - the perfect opportunity to try again. Months would pass and I'd think surely it would be ok. Surely he'd be able to and then we'd go through the whole scene again. He'd say nothing worked - not solo, not movies, not magazines - it isn't you he'd say it was him... and once again I'd smile and offer reassurances - all the while feeling less and less attractive and sexy - little pieces of me falling away and dying....
A really plain woman is one who, however beautiful, neglects to charm ~ Edgar Saltus
So there I am left: neglected, abandoned, discarded, confused. I'd never really been told I was beautiful - not by my family, not by my husband. I've always tried with my own children to compliment them on their appearance - to tell them they are handsome or pretty - to express it as a matter of fact. No one should ever grow up not believing in their own attractiveness. I remember the first time someone said I was beautiful. I had taken my baby daughter for one of her checkups and the doctor had just finished examining her - she was sitting on my lap and he was holding her hand and he just very reverently said, "She's very beautiful..." and then he looked up at me and softly said, "...just like her mother." That was new to me. If people before had ever considered me attractive they'd never told me. It was unfamiliar territory for me and I think I stammered a "why thank you" in reply. He may have just been being polite - but there was something in the way he said it that made me feel he meant it - and it made me feel beautiful. I've never forgotten it... not the words or the look or the feeling. It's amazing what a profound impact something so simple can have on someone.
Man loves little and often, woman much and rarely ~ Giorgio Basta
So by the time my ex husband comes home and decides he needs time for himself - needs to live alone and separate on a more permanent basis, I am already on the edge... already doubting myself and questioning my attractiveness... wondering what's wrong with me... feeling like less than a woman - feeling like nothing really - feeling like a husk, a shell. I'm lonely, in dire need of physical touch that's paired with an emotional connection. I'm empty. And then I find out the truth; I discover in a very undercover, clandestine way that my poor impotent husband was, in fact, having an affair. It wasn't him... it wasn't him at all - it had never been him. He was capable - very capable - of having sex... of, forgive my crudeness, getting it up. It was, actually, in fact me! It had been me all along - he could only lie beside me limp and unresponsive because he didn't find me attractive. It was then the transformation was complete... I'd officially become the most ufuckable person on the face of the earth.
Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood ~ Oscar Wilde
It's been two and a half years since he left, a year since the divorce, and I'm still carrying around this shit. I've slowly reclaimed much of my life but this, this is the trouble spot for me. I still carry this around - sometimes I look in the mirror and I still see the shadow of the 500lb bearded lady circus freak staring back at me. She just won't completely go away... she taunts me, tells me I'll always be alone, always be unlovable, always be unattractive, always be unworthy. She saps my strength and keeps picking at the wound and that's why it doesn't ever heal. I have to find a way to shut her up... send her back to the sideshow with all the other freaks - banish her skanky ass once and for all. Any ideas?
I will never be the woman with the perfect hair, who can wear white and not spill on it ~ Sex and the City ~ Spoken by character Carrie, played by Sarah Jessica Parker
I'm an exceptional woman and I am flawed... and it's within those flaws, those imperfections, that I attain the unique essence that is me. I can be such a silly little goober... I have quirks and little habits - sometimes funny, sometimes annoying, but all me. There are many qualities that make me, as a human being, a great person. I know I have value... something I've worked hard to rediscover - I've practiced a lot in the mirror, Stuart Smalley style, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and, doggonit, people like me!" And in a funny little pitiful way it's worked. I no longer doubt myself like I did... no longer question my who I am or what I want or where I want to go. I know all these things now... but one thing still remains elusive and out of my reach...
When a woman is openly bad she is then at her best ~ Latin Proverb
There is this other side to me... or really this other component to who I am and it's all tied up in being, essentially, a woman, and expressing that and exploring what it all means. I am a coquette - a flirty little tease... and I love that part of me but she's been lost...There is such a bad girl inside of me... she wants out and I don't know how to unlock the door - she's so fragile, so breakable - and I don't know how to let her grow and explore and thrive without shattering into a million pieces. What if the next hurt can't be healed? What if the next hurt does her in? Then the rest of who I am is lost too. She doesn't trust her beauty or her attractiveness. She doesn't know if it's real or a falsehood - it might all be just pretty words said to soothe and placate her. She's felt so damned disposable and what she truly fears is that she really might, in truth, actually be... she might actually be worthless as a woman... she might actually be the most unlovable, unfuckable freak on the planet. That fear is what lurks... hovers in the back alley of my mind...
The great question that has never been answered and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is "What does a woman want?" ~ Sigmund Freud
I could have told good ol' Sigmund the answer - I've talked about it before here. A woman simply wants to be cherished. She wants to know that who she is - in her totality as a woman - is loved, appreciated, desired. It's not about being appreciated to be complete... it's about an already complete woman being accepted and valued for just that - being complete. I want someone to be able to see me - ME - and find that sensual and alluring, comforting and kind, witty and wonderful. I want to look into someone's eyes and see me reflected in them... not his reflection of me. This is the last frontier for me... the last vestige of healing - but maybe this part of me has been the biggest causality in the war. Maybe it's lost to me forever... perhaps I'll never know how it feels to be cherished above all others... cherished in the only way a woman can be by the man she loves - the man who loves her.
So there it is done... my day long blog entry...
2 comments:
We glow in the reflected adoration of someone we love, someone who loves us. It becomes part of who we are; it lives inside of us. When that love turns to something else then that reflection inside begins to rot, and it poisons us, and we are lucky if we identify it and kill it before it threatens to kill us.
So think, your ex was ill, and you stood by him, you supported him, you believed in him. He had an affair, you kept him, you still believed in him and in you, your relationship, your marriage. You weren’t the one who strayed, who betrayed the sacred trust of marriage, but you vowed to fix what was wrong, fix whatever it was that drove your ex outside the marriage.
So you gave it your all. You didn’t stop loving him. You didn’t stop trying even when it was becoming obvious that he just wasn’t there, hadn’t been there for a long time, and had no intention of being there, promises to the contrary nothwithstanding. And it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough because unless he comes to the party there is no one to eat the cake. It’s the proverbial sound of one hand clapping; it can’t be done.
And you are left to pick up the pieces of your ego, of your self-esteem, you who stood basking in a love that died through no fault of yours.
It will get better. It’s a process. Keep writing. Keep praying. Keep singing. And never stop believing in yourself.
My friend, i believe this blog connects many of the dots you have been struggling to connect the last year. You have such wonderful insight into where you've been and where you are, how you've gotten here and where you want to go. I pray for you often in whatever it is that counts as prayer in my life.
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