I don’t want to give credit to this horrible pandemic, but even in the midst of the muck and mire I’ve been blessed to learn a lesson or two.
During this time, although many things have stalled and are standing still, age just keeps creeping up on you. That will never stand still. It is something I cannot control or manipulate. It just is. Time passes. We get older. I just turned 38. Nearing 40. Almost a midlife crisis on my hands, I slightly fear.
By this time in my life I thought I would achieve something grand, phenomenal, life altering, life changing for many.
This is where I assumed in my blissful ignorance, life projects upwards at an exponential degree, where all your efforts are paid off and you reap the benefits of your bloody sweat.
But as of right now, from a casual observer’s perspective, I am just simply ordinary. And that frightens me. I’ve never wanted to be ordinary, I always attempted to stand out growing up, even through some crazy outfit choices… One of the greatest compliments I’ve received was sometime in middle school, when a girl that sought to hurt me said, “You are so weird.” Goodness, I treasure those words until now! The worst thing you can tell me is that I am just like everyone else, retiring, blending in, scared to make a wrong move, causing me to stand out in the firing line of eager criticism.
And so, in the last few months, amidst the debris of many non starts and failed enterprises, as I’ve taken stock of my achievements over the years, I found myself re-evaluating my standing in the world and my conditioning and perceptions, and I’ve decided to dig deep and find the true core of myself. I needed to talk to my most inner being and find out what I truly wanted and valued at this time in my life. Perhaps I had to let go of certain aspirations that only deceived me or distracted me from the truly valuable in my life.
I was happy and uncomfortable to find out that I was willing to burn everything on the altar of Motherhood.
Growing up, mothers around me, in my Slavic, super fundamentalist culture, were second class citizens, put aside by culture to serve the men and children, servants of no importance but of performance in the home. If they didn’t think for themselves, even better. Men looked down upon them. It was horrible. It was everything I didn’t want to be. These women had very little self-worth, and as girl growing up in that society, I felt I had no value or place there. The only reason I went to the University was because I had scholarships, and everything was paid for and as an acceptable excuse- in case my husband dies and I have to work outside the home. God forbid.
Perhaps I am sharing too much, but I believe if you understand where I’ve been, you will understand where I’m going.
So here I am, coming to terms that I could possibly be happy and content to be just a mother to my 3 and 6 year old and just a wife to my loving husband. That I could be…just that. That I don’t have to be anything outside of the role I am playing right now to be happy. That I don’t need all those accolades and acceptance of my intelligence and uniqueness from anyone else, not even my parents. I love them, but they are who they are, and I cannot mold them into whom I would prefer them to be. I cannot stretch their limitations, as I cannot do the same with my own.
And guess what? I realized that one can find happiness in being a housewife. Yep, that blew my mind as well. Grass is always greener on the other side. When we couldn’t participate in one world, years ago, we wanted it. And now, thank God, some are lucky to have that choice.
I am blessed to be a housewife. To have that time to look after my sweet home and my sweet kids and my almost always sweet husband. And you know, to start becoming a little vain again.
I want to feel like a woman. Fiercely Feminine.
I want to give myself the permission to be unapologetically immersed in this phase in my life, haters be damned. They can laugh at the joy I experience of looking after my home (when I can- hey I am not going to spend too much time at the expense of blissing out with my kids!), my struggling attempts to carve out time for spa moments at home, with eager attempts to hold onto my beauty and fashion faux pas. I want to look after my kids with deeper compassion and to be a better friend to my husband with unconditional love.
I want to find that joy in looking after myself again. To carve out more time for makeup and hair tutorials and actually using a body balm to keep the rest of my skin glistening even if no one else sees it, just for me! All these things I’ve done in my less attached years, before I got married and had kids.
I want to be grand just for me.
And so, after giving myself permission to stop seeking, but to enjoy what I’ve already found, I’ve become in touch with that next level of bliss that I innately craved. I now spend a little more intentional time with my kids, not because I feel I have to, but because it is something I really love to do. I love my kids and there is nothing I would prefer more than to be with them, playing, learning about the world and seeing the wonder of it all through their eyes.
And I am writing again! Just because it is something I always loved to do. It is not a waste of time, but pure delight … pure blissful delight.
By this time in my life, I thought I would achieve something grand, phenomenal, life altering, life changing for many…
And I have. Perhaps not life changing for many, but life changing for the ones around me… as I am now able to be truly, unapologetically me.
And that is unapologetically, delightfully, blissfully Fiercely Feminine!
Here’s to all the Mothers and Wives out there!
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Use code FIERCELYFEMININE on most items in the shop, or on https://www.etsy.com/listing/1142069129/fiercely-feminine-for-facehairbody-oil.
~by Olga Pyshnyak-Lawrence
Maternal Movement 