“How many times am I expected to do this?” The exasperated Phoenix looked at the new fires erupting around her. Her insurance agent had canceled her coverage fires and fires ago. She knew from experience that she had to let the fires burn to ashes before rising, so she settled in and tapped her talons on the kitchen counter – waiting for it to catch fire and burn.
“This is getting old.”
She had given up the fire extinguisher because it wouldn’t allow her to rise. The Phoenix didn’t understand why, but her wings were useless while the flames burned. The rubble had to burn to ashes. Complete ash was required. Cold ash.
She bided her time and used a coal shovel to scrape and scoop. After the last fire, she’d been sloppy. There were piles of ash here and there. They were so deep, and she was too buried in ash to stretch her wings. She had to shovel her way out.
At this stage of life, I am realizing that the social conditioning of my youth has not been good for me. I was fed attitudes, opinions, and beliefs that were not my own but were presented as right and proper. Men were to be catered to, a woman’s role was to care for her husband and children, authority was to be obeyed, God was omniscient –not just saw everything but willed it into being.
Consequently, I think I was an intellectual cripple until my 40s when my blinders were ripped off by the circumstances of life. My marriage was failing, my son was grown, and authority was abysmally wrong on so many things.
It all came to a head in 2002 as I entered my last year of full-time college. I had dropped out when young and unfocused and hampered by my social conditioning, but returned in my late 30s when I was restless and confident there was more to life than I’d been led to believe. Sociology, anthropology, and philosophy classes taught me to question everything I had been indoctrinated with. It was tumultuous, but also comforting. It wasn’t too late to have a meaningful life. I could still achieve self-actualization.
I had always been told I could do anything, and I felt guilty for not having achieved much. But in retrospect, that was just pablum fed to me as everything else directed me to be a plaything, a servant, a doormat. How can you be anything when you are busy finding and maintaining a husband, a home, a child, and a job all while looking good and cooking delicious meals.
That return to college in the late 90s created a line in my life. What happened before and what happened after. I have been far happier with the after in spite of trials and tribulations.
The difference has been I have ignored that early conditioning. But I feel like a maverick—an outlier. I need to unlearn that shit completely. Wipe it from my memory banks so that I can look aghast at all the other social conditioning that I’ve been subjected to and just don’t realize yet. The first 40 years of my life culminated in my understanding that authority had been wrong and I had been hoodwinked. The past 24 years have taught me there is a bottomless depth of bullshit installed in my head – much of it I’m probably still unaware it’s there and ticking. Yes, ticking, like a bomb to catch me unaware and unready for the challenges to come — aging, eldercare, and all the other still unknowns. Lord only knows what’s in my head waiting to unleash misery and mayhem due to early teachings. I need to unlearn that bullshit now. Now.
The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds. – Thomas Merton
My mind is a magpie collecting bits and pieces of shiny things from all corners of my world. They glitter and shine in the afternoon light, no matter that they are simply debris of broken glass or twisted metal from a car wreck. It twinkles and glows in my peripheral vision and I sweep it up and hold it dear. My mind is full of such flotsam and jetsam.
With my broken leg, I’ve had to slow down my movements even considering that I had long covid and was already slow. Now, I’m at a snail’s pace. Life is different when you move slowly. When you must plan outings including a simple trip upstairs to get a forgotten hairbrush. You learn to prioritize, to multitask, and to be patient.
Patience, indeed. This has been a humbling experience. I thought the indignities of long covid were awful. At least with long covid, I could do for myself, it just took me a long time. With the leg, the pain would stop me in my tracks. “I have to sit down now.” “Can you help me?” “I can’t.” all became part of my daily lexicon. The “I can’t.” was the hardest lesson of all.
W. Va. Fur and Root 