Follower of the White Rabbit: What Women Can Do

I grew up in a family of women. A small family of women. There were no brothers, or uncles, or husbands. Just this group of overbearing, overweight sturdy women. They have given me a lot of strength, but there is a lot of weakness there as well. On one hand, I tell myself constantly that I have no excuses. My mother mined coal and smoked cigarettes simultaneously. She also managed to raise me and my sister alone, and put herself through college, and woke up at 5am to run miles through the back hills of Wheeling. So, I feel like if she could do that at 40, that I should be able to do twice that at 25. My grandmother has survived diabetes and cancer, and I don't think that woman has ever taken shit from anyone in her life. My great- grandmother had two children 16 years apart. She spent most of her adult life as a house keeper sharing one room and one bed with my grandmother. That woman lived well into her 90's and still put rouge on before she went to the grocery store. I mean, I'm from some pretty rough stock. They all have lost more than they ever gained. Typical West Virginia women. It wasn't fair, in fact it is disgustingly unfair, but you'd never hear them say it.

Although I feel it made me an independent person, it also made me very skeptical of anything that made me happy. It has been proven to me too many times that nothing is a sure thing. Nothing, especially relationships, are permanent. I know that even if you find someone out there. Even if you get married and stay together for a decade, he can very well die of a brain aneurysm in the night. Even if you drag yourself through addiction and recovery. If you manage to get out of it, and start over, and find someone to accept you, he very well could run off one day with someone else. And even if you take a risk. Even if against all odds you plan your life with this person, he could instantly die in a car accident. That is a break down of my grandmother, mother, and aunt's last relationship. Which by the was was about 35 years ago. They have literally been alone ever since, and it was by choice.What do you do with that? How do you just accept the rug being ripped out from underneath you, and there is nothing you can do about it? I felt for awhile that it was this curse. My great grandmother was a single parent who had two daughters. My grandmother, single parent, had two daughters. My mother, single parent, had two daughters. I thought we were just destined to be this fatherless family, and maybe we still are. That's the fear though, you are never done. You can't ever be comfortable because things without a doubt will change. I'm not saying you cant enjoy the good, or that you have to focus on the end constantly. I'm just saying it doesn't surprise me that I am afraid of the "how" in terms of the end. I am always bracing myself for some unforeseen disaster.

Another thing it taught me was that I do not like women very much. They expect so much out of a person. All women are analyzing you, all of us. When you come to my grandmothers house for dinner, you have basically walked into a lion's den. When you are talking we are not really thinking about what you are saying. We are thinking about how that relates to our pros and cons list of you. It is fucked up, but we cant help it. Some women embrace that shit, thats why we have shows like Atlanta Housewives. They know they are judgmental shit-talkers, but fuck it, lets just roll with this and make money doing so. I cant blame them because you cant take it out of yourself. I spend a lot of time contradicting myself and trying desperately not to be such a gossiping bitch, but that's the way my mind works. I had a dream once that I walked up to my ex's prostitute girlfriend with a bunch of people, and drunkenly told her I'd pay her for sex. She didn't want to, but I kept raising the price laughing because I knew at some point she would take the money and humiliate herself in front of all of these people. That my friends is my uncontrolled psyche. I don't want to think this shit. Hell, I woke up in a cold sweat going "God damn, there is something really wrong with me." But that is women. We are controlling, tedious, plotting bitches and if you are sitting back saying, "oh my girls not that way" you sir have just been figured out, caught, tamed, and trapped. Its a lot of energy too. When all the women in my family are in the same room I feel like the hair on the back of my neck rises. Its like you can feel the electricity coming off of there always spinning minds.

I'm the baby in my family. Its a shitty position, but it has its advantages. I think my family always liked me more than my sister. It wasn't a good thing. She definitely never took it well, and blamed me for every injustice she experienced. My sister is a good person, and I love her, but I definitely didn't always feel that way. I just thought that we were treated the same and my sister was just a bitch. Looking back, it truly was not that way. My sister did everything right and she just never got her parade. She graduated college with honors, and she was never without a job. She owned her home before she was 25. Married a great guy, and had a son in the correct order. I was the fuck up, which probably increased the hatred she had for me. I was an underachiever. I never got straight A's, I dropped out of college after a month. I never had money to pay my rent, I lied about working. I had a child out of wedlock with a 19 year old which I thought was really going to end my babied existence. They still give me excuses they would never give her. Its fucked up, but I think it is more of an insult to me than her. I think that they don't give her excuses because they know she can do it on her own. They don't believe in me really. They think any emotional inconvenience is going to send me over a cliff. My mother is constantly concerned that I will not be able to handle my life which makes me believe it. It makes me think that things are just so out of control, when really this is pretty standard for the time period. I have walked into a lot of things on my own, and feel like I have to take responsibility for my life. These aren't things that are just happening to me. I always have my hand in it.

Overall I have a great family. They are dysfunctional, yes, but they are loving. They will help me if I need it, and they will accept my life even when it opposes what they feel is right. You have to cherish your family even if you don't know who they are. They shaped you, at least genetically. They gave you a way into this world, so everything that you experience and love and hate comes down to them. Regardless of how you look at the world you should be grateful you can see it at all.