She almost gave up. Having been hurt a few times she says it is no longer worth her while. Many years have gone by. With still many more ahead, going by the results of her latest annual medical, she sets out on a new journey, one she describes as authentic and nothing, it seems, is going to stop her.
It is obvious that she is about to change the rules. She says she will not be diagnosed with housewife’s blight or ever have to wear a corset again. Even her mother says it is not going to work, that the dreaded shortage of suitors is back. Her friends also say they are under pressure, from within, to conform.
She admits her suburban lifestyle is arm-twisting but says she would escape. At a time that she says she feels she is not to blame for the troubles for which nonetheless she chose to pay, and indeed, as it turns out, with dramatic consequences for her view of herself and of her world, she says she would need a shrink sticking to redundant norms.
The behemoth that holds her down now reveals the inner workings of lost souls, as the fabricated existence, grandeur in ennui, and solitudinarian virtue that the veneer of tranquility in the quarter conceals from the outside shears for hers to trigger the move to discover herself anew.
She says her children will always matter. For so much that mitigates her tears have changed as much as she desires for little to invoke the maternal duel of love that torments her soul to recession so deep within to ferret without her emotions further in disarray she seeks solace, sure only change of the sort she craves would bring. This she hopes they would accept in time.
Thus for now she leaves town albeit on a leach, an emotional attachment to the new that the old appears to want to repeal, and with which she bears the scar with grace for this time she says it counts. The mirror she says now shows whom she feels, the old wounds afresh, to sway a lost soul ashore, from an ocean of shame into whose depths it hides from one that beckons but whose authenticity seems not for real.
All along she feels like filth garbed in silk. She cowers still to venture outside the yard. That on her suburban paradise filled with tears of an elliptical waltz of players torn by its imminent demise oftentimes a veritable sanctuary for salacious miscreants they fear to loathe she dares to squeal seems enough to make her freeze. But she says she no longer cares to be labelled a freak.
To leap and not crawl is fraught with risks, more so as she seems all alone, caught in a losing coalition she imagines even when real, horrified by the game they play to make her feel ashamed. Yet, she seems bent on flying away, to wherever she says makes her feel whole again, a journey of discovery that seems critical to the continuity of her very being, wrought from oblivion by her sheer will to live, and be happy again.
Her mother cautions that the world is still. She says hers was dead. They argue over what it means to be real, both eventually on par as to where to begin, even if where it heads remain unknown, even to the one whose life has been almost the same, if not in fact worse she says when all seemed confined to darkness.
She says she has reached the race track, that it is no longer in her hands. What with the road ahead mangled to tear apart an ailing soul would armour mean to win the race of life when nothing else seems to inspire anyone to blow the whistle to start the race the code of silence to which they swore riddled with pain she is wont to lament she admits. As long as she wins the duel she says her overall victory simply lies in wait.
Aprons and spiked heels are gone she says, never mind that they say tin hats hardly look dandy on gentler kindred. Not one to be the tentative rookie, she harries to save the cookie, to make her point about the kitchen, and stamp once and for all the seal of authenticity her new self bestows. She insists she has to abhor the myths to roam free in a world that shackles the soul.
The countdown then starts. Her mother seems perplexed, yet is supportive, her friends too, although some admit to being too timid to bear to lose. She tells them being you is never losing again. Known for her tenacity, it must be clear to all that she would fight to win, no matter how long it takes, once she sets her mind to it.
She says she realizes the need to wager in turmoil is why she wants the change, and that she is ready to prove that she also deserves a pay, with an emphasis on equitable pay. She tells her friends that like her they should no longer be content to brood over the laundry list, and to wash diapers and dishes and to nod off the moment they sit to rest for the day.
She says she would not feel guilty about every salmon being canned now or about the tin man doing her chores. She no longer wants to have to kill time watching soaps, or be rushed into bed to heal someone’s ego battered by predatory competitors outside home. She says she just wants to be at peace, happy, and free.
When she starts again, she says it must be on the level, each partner a protagonist of the other, soul mates and not bed mates, committed to an empathetic fullness of grace that ensures the challenges they would inevitably face become history to relish as they were outposts to conquer and to a transcendence of love that is the wellspring of the wisdom that reveals the realness of the person, the meaning of life, a consciousness she says is not too much to bow low to achieve.
