Formidable Women
It’s Friday night, I am home alone, watching Cigarette Girl on Netflix, resonating deeply with the main character and her unrequited love, unfulfilled passion and stolen dreams. Why is it that we spend our whole youth knowing we were born to do something formidable with our lives only to grow up and spend what’s left of our energy healing a broken heart that just can’t move on?
I started thinking about a boyfriend who loved me and how I wished I had loved him back and accepted his noble offer. I might have even been happy. It occurred to me that in so many ways God warns us and sets us on the right path but because we disobey we end up in a mess. As the mini series reveals my point we also always end up exactly where we were headed. I think reality is like a coin, it has two sides. What feels like a sacrifice is actually a guidance and what feels like magic can actually be a test. We always get to where we are going but sometimes it’s the flipside of that reality. So close yet so far… Is this Catholic or religious guilt, the hero’s journey, life Life-ing? The fight between good and evil, the sacrifices that are made so we may jump timelines and give the blessings intended for us to the generations to come. The stereotypical martyr, giving up the good that’s here for us now so that our children and even our children’s children can have a better start. A plan for the future, divine timing that takes lifetimes.
Why is this? Why not just have the rewards, why not a good life, great life without the struggle and strife. Why not the boyfriend that loves us and we love back. Dasiyah, the protagonist of this story, is crushed. She chose love. She even defied her own knowing that the love of her life was meant to betray her. Not even he knew he would but in the end they both suffered because she chose to rebel for the love of another rather than the love of self, the love of a calling, a craft. Have you seen it? It’s a beautiful love story. An example of how everything finds its way back around, how everything meant for us cannot miss us, how patient a truth can be, how grand our families histories are. Unfortunately, it also tells a story like so many of a woman who gives up her dreams for a man.
In one of the earlier episodes I thought about wanting a love like that only to be bawling 2 episodes later at the utter audacity of that love’s betrayal. Why would we want a husband over a legacy, a simple life over a life of service to God’s blessing? Stupid girls, we are meant for more. Is it that we want love so badly or are we conditioned to want love so badly? It’s a theme that plays out in my life currently…do I want a man or do I need a man? Can my life be wild and exciting and full without being someone’s wife? I dare to think so, I dare to challenge myself to fulfill what I want on my own, with the strength and creativity God endows me with. Single and Happy was the goal that inspired a workshop I created two years ago about having a full life beyond the worldly assumption that we should be coupled to do so. It’s been 7 years since my marriage ended and while I do have hope in my heart for a new love, I know that life is incomplete without our own personal goals being realized. To choose love over the direction we are being pulled to by our inner compass falls short. It might be ideal to have both, the question is does my ideal and God’s ideal align?
I love that there is always a bigger conversation happening, we are always talking with God, even in the shows we watch. In the end it is always better to choose yourself, always better to follow the direction of life and not resist. It’s also so personal and unique to each of us. This dance between following life’s current and following a dream requires trust. The guarantee is that at some point there will be a challenge. Some test. All we can do is show up as our full selves and never forget that coin. This can go either way, all the time. The lesson for me has been to learn to not force anything, to let what will happen happen. To be fearless in moving forward and being light about all things, that very yogic practice of non-attachment. Either way your heart will break, either way you’ll end up where you were supposed to, the question is which side of the coin do we land on.
There is a saying that says a million dollars to God is a penny and a million years to God is a second.
“God, can I have one of your pennies?”
“Sure, just a second!”
A spiritual life means that we allow the dichotomy of the ethereal and material talk to us. One expresses through the other and to believe is to know that it almost is never what it seems, either way. Learn and love yourself. This is the practice at play right now. Go with the flow, learn and stay ready for all things to be different and better than we imagined. If you’ve seen the show or any of this resonates with you, let me know by leaving a comment. Thanks for reading.
