Bleed and Be Grateful

A genius is the one most like himself.

~Thelonius Monk.

Thank you Monkmeister. I believe you. I really do. But I wonder, did you hurt as many people as I have? In the process of becoming yourself? 

The thing about being a woman and following Thelonius Monks' directives on becoming a genius is that people don’t expect it. And frankly, they don’t want it. In fact, it scares the everloving shit out of their vacuum-sealed collection of small intestines. Because stepping into the truth of what you want, who you are as a woman, is stepping out of the predetermined plaster mold that society poured just for you. 

Here are just a few of the “shoulds” society imposes:

You should be grateful that you even have a mold, grateful that you are supported, grateful that your children are healthy, grateful that you get to cook dinner every night, pair socks on weekends, not age, not get fat, not discuss the fact that you walk around and bleed once a month without dying. 

The mold is there for you to lie in. And you’d do well to just lay down in it, close it up at night, drink enough so you don’t get any wild ideas, and keep the peace for the children. For the home. For the sake of the family. 

“Becoming most like herself” is one of the hardest, most courageous, and revolutionary acts a woman can show her daughters how to do. Expect resistance. Expect to feel alone. Expect to live in the fray for a while. Until one day you stumble upon some remote inlet of your deserted island. Only to find yourself surrounded by exotic-looking women with unkempt hair wearing flower crowns cupping mugs of rose tea, pockets stuffed with feathers and stones and butterfly wings and Black-Eyed Susans. Then you will know you have found your new family. Then you will know you will never be alone again. 

I may come across as the kind of person who possesses a built-in blatant disregard for other people’s feelings. Like I’ve somehow bypassed guilt, shame, fear, giving shit. That’s how I write. I worry sometimes it’s not an accurate reflection of my physiology every time I hit “publish” on a post like this. Because the fear, the guilt, the sadness is ancestral. The shame has run rivulets through my veins for centuries. This is not something one can simply bypass. It’s coded into my cells. I just have to do it scared. I have to keep becoming myself scared. Because try as I might - and believe me, my life would be a whole lot easier if I could - I  c a n n o t  NOT be myself. Trying to deny who I was, is what made me drink myself into oblivion every night of my 20s and 30s. Trying to not be myself is what I thought taking Adderall and Vyvanse and an occasional Benzo would “cure me of.” But it didn’t. And I almost died trying to cure myself. 

Of. 

Myself. 

So take a leaf from Thelonius’s book. But also remember it might not have been as hard for him, being a man. But also remember you can do it. You don’t have to live out the mold. You know what mold looks like over time. People might get hurt by your stepping into yourself. You are not responsible for how people react to you becoming a genius. Says so right there on the lid. I love you. I see you. I know you. I am you.