Tessie D

I need to take the Women Who Run book back to the library, but I wanted to remember this part:

“Women who are gullible or those with injured instincts still, like flowers, turn in the direction of whatever sun is offered. The naive or injured woman is then too easily lured with promises of ease, of lilting enjoyment, of various pleasures, be they promises of elevated status in the eyes of her family, her peers, or promises of increased security, eternal love, high adventure, or hot sex.”

“Asking the proper question is the central action of transformation — in fairy tales, in analysis, and in individuation. (The individual?) The key question causes germination of consciousness. (Beginning to think?) The properly shaped question always emanates from an essential curiosity about what stands behind. Questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open.”

“It is at this point that the naive nature begins to mature, to question, ‘What is behind the visible? What is it which causes that shadow to loom upon the wall?’ The youthful naive nature begins to understand that if there is a secret something, if there is a shadow something, if there is a forbidden something, it needs to be looked into. Those who would develop consciousness pursue all that stands behind the readily observable: the unseen chirping, the murked window, the lamenting door, the lip of light beneath a sill. They pursue these mysteries until the substance of the matter is laid open to them.”

I understand this. I’m not gullible or naive, but I am lonely. I am injured. I want so badly to be more than what I am… or what I was. What if there is more than all this? What if there is something else? I don’t want more than what anyone else would want in my situation — a little compassion, warmth, joy. Isn’t that what we all want? Is that so much to ask for?

Do people like me actually get the sort of life that they want for themselves? Do they get to fantasize about what they want and then make it happen?

I can’t believe that Momma and Daddy grew up wanting this life, their lives. Surely they wanted more than all this–this struggle, this sacrifice. Worrying about money and bills and getting up and doing it all over again the next day? Worrying about what people think about them and their family and their disgraced daughter and her poor dead baby?

Come to think of it, I haven’t ever asked Momma or Daddy what they wanted to be when they grew up. Why have I never asked them that question? People asked me that all the time, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Or, now that I think about it, did they? Did people ask me that?

Or did I just run around telling everyone what I wanted to be? That I wanted to be a teacher and a writer and to read books all day… That I never wanted to be a disappointment or an embarrassment or a failure. Someone sitting in a room all day, watching the clock tick by, writing only to herself, and thinking about her life, her mistakes, and her losses.