Marianne Faithfull’s Lucy Jordan was a victim of circumstance. She was a housewife who had never been given the tools of personal agency. That song was written in 1975. This was around the same time as Marilyn French’s The Women's Room and lots of other feminist literature that spoke of the deep sense of entrapment and loss that women were feeling at the time. Those narratives are about women not reaching their full potential, having their wings clipped by society and having no power to determine their life's path.
This, quite simply, is not my problem. My life has more in common with Talking Heads’ Once in a Lifetime. Some of my favourite lyrics:
And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway lead to?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right? Am I wrong?
And you may say to yourself
My God! What have I done?
I am the master of my personal destiny. I have achieved more that I expected possible. I have created my life by the choices I have made. And I am not sure I like what I see or who I am in it.
But let’s put this in context. I’m not about to throw myself under a bus, leave my husband, desert my children or disappear in a haze of narcotic-infused madness.
I am facing it head on. One place is here on this blog. The other is in the numerous interactions with healer types, friends, parents, in meditation, and sometimes just alone in my car.
This is a journey that will ultimately end the integration of the various pieces of me. Not their destruction. I am feeling fine about it. Actually, I’m feeling better about it than I have in a long time.