We’re one of a kind, no category

Too many years lost in his story

We’re free to take our crowning glory

• 

The last live performance I saw before the lockdown in March–the last time I ventured through the doors of the Opera House–was with two friends for the show Six. I had little to no expectations, having read no reviews of the show from London or New York; I just knew that if Philippa Gregory and Hilary Mantel had not managed to quench my appetite for Tudor drama over their thousands of pages, that I’d sure as hell be able to sit still for an hour to watch a musical starring the half-dozen ex-wives.

I did, glass of champagne in hand and friends by my side, and the story and show have endured well past that night, thanks to the soundtrack’s inclusion on Amazon music and its accompaniment to many of my runs since March. I listened to the women’s anthems on repeat so often that it took awhile for me to finally get to the finale: a rousing revisionist history that celebrated the women’s spirits and all they could–maybe should–have been.

It made me cry, the what-if, could-have-been of it all, the unfairness of six women’s stories being lost in one man’s. It made me think of how often I’ve defined my life, myself, by others, polling for opinions rather than sitting still and listening to my own inner spirit; looking for a role or title to bestow the meaning I crave; waiting for a relationship to fulfill me or a project to bring me to life.

Now I know what is true: that there is a grace big enough, loving enough, to write us not as footnotes to someone else’s story or as a hesitating, ellipsis-laden, brief mention in time, but to write a story for each of us, all of these individual circles growing outward and bumping into others, sometimes coalescing, defined by all this becoming that contributes to the greater picture. And each of us needs space for that becoming.

It’s not lost on me that two of the central relationships of my life–my connection to each of my kids–is meant to free them of a need to be defined by me or our family; that we are their home now, and their launching pad eventually, and then, God willing, their lives will include but grow beyond us. That it’s my job to teach them not to need me one day as much as they do today.

In that vein, I toured a high school last week and imagined them there. I imagined legs even longer than they are now, histories more detailed, stories bigger, independence greater. I sat in an office with a registrar and engaged in that lifelong battle I’ve had with self-consciousness, and caught myself wondering if I was behaving appropriately, asking the right questions, if my face had the look that fit the conversation.

Which is so exhausting. Trust me.

So instead, I told myself to stop all that and just listen and be, and let this unfold. Then the next day, when we ventured back to church for the first time in months and the boys (well, one of them–the introvert) didn’t want me to leave, and I wondered whether it would be appropriate for me to be the only parent who stayed and what would the teachers think and–oh, just fuck it I thought, and sat next to them before gradually distancing myself and eventually moving to the next room, an unlit sanctuary of aloneness, where I just sat and thought and was, and gave it all the space to unfold. And it was the most peaceful hour I’ve had in awhile. Or at least since we’ve gotten the dog.

Because it turns out that, sometimes, the neediest person I know is me, and sometimes what she really needs to hear is that she doesn’t have to do contortions to fit into what other people might think is “right” but that she can spread out–she can take up space in this world that teaches so many of us, especially women, that we should be more compact, more agreeable. We each need that space to grow, to fail, to become. To let the story unfold alongside everyone else’s.