Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Upping my dose of Gingko
So, a recent post on Shrimp'n'Grits struck a chord with some of the ideas, anxieties, and observations that have been rumbling around in my brain for a few years now. I am 10 days away from being 27 years-old. And 10 days away from being a married woman. With both birthdays and weddings being laden with certain expectations, it doesn't seem so improbable that I have been a bit melancholy these past few weeks. I am not depressed or despairing. I am not raging or fearful or bitter. I just occasionally get a little pang of sadness that does not make me want to cry or run away, but simply take notice.
I have been struggling since I moved to France with this sort of woman-child persona I awkwardly developed into, pulled constantly between my socially exuberant youthfulness and my quietly reflective nesting instinct. But really, these two sides of me have always cohabitated, even when I was a little girl. The only thing that changes is what my culture expects of me at a given age. Or at least how I choose to perceive this.
From about the age of 16, I felt pretty much obliged to make myself available. To secure the prize of "Busiest Girl". Somewhere around 24, this social competitiveness lost its luster. I let the excess begin to slide away… the friends that weren't close enough, the activities that weren't interesting enough, the philosophies that weren't resistant enough. I was tired of waking up dry-mouthed on weekdays, the last night's parties still quarantined somewhere in my digestive track.
But I wasn't about to go cold turkey. However, with a total uprooting, a change in relationship status, and professional status, and cultural environment, it's what I ended up doing. My first year here definitely shoved me into adulthood without asking my opinion. And while I have desperately (and sometimes pathetically) tried to recover a bit of my party girl aura (which may or may not have ever existed), I've suddenly arrived at a moment in my life that reeks of abandonment.
In France, they refer to a bachelorette party as the "burial of the girl life". I wore black to mine. But I am also not ready to accept the fact that becoming a "woman", an adult woman, a married woman means that the girl part of me will every truly go away. After all, to break in my wedding shoes, I've developed a system of trying to learn the step routine from the new Sean Paul video. Of course, my aging body collides occasionally with my girly antics, as I threw my back out last week rioting to the Sex Pistols alone in my living room.
And let's not forget about the frequent mental lapses of names and dates and times. My parents always told me I had a photographic memory, but now I feel as if this memory has set up camp on the tip of my tongue.
But one of the cool things that comes with this brain aging is the stoic acceptance of life that can be somewhat surprising to this firey Aries. I remember writing in my journal once when I was in high school, a sort of note to adult self, "Be sure to tell your daughter 'This too shall pass.'" And I think that I am now ready to believe that. And it does wonders for the insomnia.
I have been struggling since I moved to France with this sort of woman-child persona I awkwardly developed into, pulled constantly between my socially exuberant youthfulness and my quietly reflective nesting instinct. But really, these two sides of me have always cohabitated, even when I was a little girl. The only thing that changes is what my culture expects of me at a given age. Or at least how I choose to perceive this.
From about the age of 16, I felt pretty much obliged to make myself available. To secure the prize of "Busiest Girl". Somewhere around 24, this social competitiveness lost its luster. I let the excess begin to slide away… the friends that weren't close enough, the activities that weren't interesting enough, the philosophies that weren't resistant enough. I was tired of waking up dry-mouthed on weekdays, the last night's parties still quarantined somewhere in my digestive track.
But I wasn't about to go cold turkey. However, with a total uprooting, a change in relationship status, and professional status, and cultural environment, it's what I ended up doing. My first year here definitely shoved me into adulthood without asking my opinion. And while I have desperately (and sometimes pathetically) tried to recover a bit of my party girl aura (which may or may not have ever existed), I've suddenly arrived at a moment in my life that reeks of abandonment.
In France, they refer to a bachelorette party as the "burial of the girl life". I wore black to mine. But I am also not ready to accept the fact that becoming a "woman", an adult woman, a married woman means that the girl part of me will every truly go away. After all, to break in my wedding shoes, I've developed a system of trying to learn the step routine from the new Sean Paul video. Of course, my aging body collides occasionally with my girly antics, as I threw my back out last week rioting to the Sex Pistols alone in my living room.
And let's not forget about the frequent mental lapses of names and dates and times. My parents always told me I had a photographic memory, but now I feel as if this memory has set up camp on the tip of my tongue.
But one of the cool things that comes with this brain aging is the stoic acceptance of life that can be somewhat surprising to this firey Aries. I remember writing in my journal once when I was in high school, a sort of note to adult self, "Be sure to tell your daughter 'This too shall pass.'" And I think that I am now ready to believe that. And it does wonders for the insomnia.
Comments:
Post a Comment
