Losing my religion
Maybe it's in the stars, maybe it's a midlife crisis
I went to see a Vedic astrologer the other day. She was a fey, dreamy sort of youngling who told me all sorts of things that were lovely to hear and made me question the value of good news.
But one thing she said stood out for me and seems to arrive front of mind whenever I sit down to write a newsletter.
She said: “You really need to be more of an opinionated woman with bitch energy. It’s necessary. People need to hear what you have to say. They will respond best to this.”
(In this retelling I can’t help but place her accent as Russian or from some vague Eastern European origin, but even though she might look the part, she was decidedly Capetonian.)
I couldn’t help smiling at this. It reminded me of the Dorothy Black days when being an opinionated woman with tell-it-like-it-is “bitch energy” certainly did get the response and certainly did do some good along the way.
After the post about menopause, I had a few people ask me if this was a return to Dorothy, and how it would be great if it was because advocacy and education is so necessary etcetera etcetera.
I did as I always do when this question comes up, which is to spend a nanosecond scanning my mind and body to see if this is an option, and the system response came back the way it always does: Nope. No. Hayi. Non. Ek wil nie baie dankie. No thanks.
Not because I don’t want to help people in some small way and not even because I don’t feel the inclination to this field anymore, but because I don’t have the opinionated bitch energy I had back then.
Creeping into my 40s did something I didn’t expect: it took the wind right out of my opinionated, black-and-white, know-it-all, bitch-energy sails.
It ushered in, not a time of YAS QUEEN I’m-here-to-round-house-kick-life-in-the-face energy – like the magazines had promised – but rather a sort of reflective uncertainty about what it all means.
And by “it”, I mean everything: What am I for? What is life for? What is doing anything for? Who am I for? Why is – *waves arms around* – this?! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON, PEOPLE?
My religion that was my opinion and judgement about all things, but especially those as a columnist and agony aunt, just lost all its appeal and then all its structural integrity.
I guess it was all perfectly on time and natural given the circumstances: hormonal changes colliding with national implosion and a global pandemic, personal and professional crises…
But I do feel let down by the hype of what one’s forties were supposed to hold. I thought I’d be flying by now. I thought I’d own a house and a nice car and be a great success in my career; I thought I’d be “sorted out” and feel sure about my place in the world…
And here I am. Happy in so many ways, but “sorted and sure about my place in the world” ain’t one of them.
Maybe it’s the time of year that’s got me thinking like this.
Here in South Africa it’s winter, and in Cape Town the lashing rain and dramatic grey-black sky above a brooding mountain provides the perfect setting for introspection. (Nothing like the tyranny of summer, distracting, demanding always, with its Things To Do.)
So I think: what have I gained in getting older? What am I gaining from this place called midlife?
In so many ways I am stronger, wiser, more compassionate with myself and others, more at peace than I was at any other point in my life. My mind is quieter, my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual capacity greater. In many ways, I am more in my body, detached from outcomes, less inclined to care what others think, and more interested in engaging with the work I am here to do than in pleasing others. I’ve learned to say what I mean and mean what I say.
But the superficial, singular confidence so abundant in youth is gone and with it the crisp, hard-edged surety about who I am in the where I am and the when I am.
I miss it sometimes. But only sometimes.
Because there is another sort of confidence emerging in its place. Something altogether more centred and far less fleeting: the creative energy that drives life forward – always evolving, always pressing on. It flows through me also, and if I want it to ground me, if I want to trust that eternal wisdom that is infinitely greater than the blip of light I am on the timeline, I can’t try to control outcomes or pull levers; I can’t clutch at my small opinions and judgements about things.
I can’t, I see now, hold fast to a position if I wish to go with the flow of life.
So what does bolshy “bitch energy” mean now? And how would it ever translate into what I do?
I’m not sure.
Although, it occurs to me as I write this, that “bitch energy” doesn’t need to be cutting and hardcore and definitive.
Since we live in a time where so much of the world still operates off an old patriarchal paradigm, “bitch energy” could probably refer to any feminine energy that sets and holds boundaries, expresses power, bites back, shines its light, uses its voice, and fills space.
And if that’s the case, I reckon it’s something I can do. I might even live up to my birth chart’s expectations of me.
But who knows anything anymore. Maybe in my 50s things will be clearer…
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