For many years I lived under the shadow of a mother who could not like me and hardly stylish of me. In 2007, at the age of 97, she died. For many years she had suffered form dementia and the woman who died was not the one who made me feel like a failure. When she went, a pathetic old lady, I felt myself change. I always belief that the Major general in the 'Pirates of Penzance' being an 'orphan boy' was just ludicrous, but now I am an 'orphan woman' I feel wholly liberated for the first time in my life.
How could this be? I am a grandmother, have two remarkable adult children, a prosperous teaching work in my Cv and am still teaching both music and drama. But her death marked a milestone for me. I am now the oldest in the family. What a responsibility. I used to joke that when she died I would have to grow up! Well, I'm mot sure if that has happened, but I am, somehow, different.
Dollhouse Families
I'm thinner, having spent some money on a hypnotherapist who helped me reassess my eating patterns and stop eating too much. I'm full of confidence, not just because I am thinner, but because my hypnotherapist also allowed me something authentically extra - she allowed me to understand that I could 'deserve' something. The way I was brought up, and many of my generation will share this, was to believe that I was pretty worthless and should not expect to have the right to have anything. I could never 'deserve' whatever because I wasn't 'good enough'.
I had almost no ambition, looking it as being somehow improper or ill-mannered. I wanted all things for my daughter and son, but never authentically got to terms with wanting things for me. Now I know that I can 'deserve' what I desire, and that desiring something, wanting something so much it hurts, is not wrong. In my sessions with the therapist I discovered, to my surprise, that what I authentically want (what I really, authentically want) is to be rich.
I don't mean filthy, stinking rich. I just mean rich sufficient not to worry about money ever again, rich sufficient to voyage in firm Class on planes and First Class on trains. If I could double my income, which is not enormous, I could achieve those things. If I trebled it I could pay of my kids' mortgages and free them up a bit. But see, I belief of myself first! I've learned to do that in the last year.
This year I haven't made resolutions for the year, but for the rest of my life. I am going to live to be at least 120. I am going to write that novel that I have always wanted to write. I am going to make money on the internet, perhaps on the dollhouse site, but more likely by what I am studying now, which involves writing, which I always knew I was good at.
I am still working as a volunteer on a society site, and am kept fairly busy at that. I love doing it, and will not stop. I have never been so busy, not have I ever been so full of energy. I do not worry about money any more, though I have not made very much yet. I'm even spending money on clothes, something I have never felt comfortable with. Some days I hardly recognise myself. But I authentically like what I see, at last.
I think what I am saying is, we all have value, and it is remarkable to me that I have begun to enjoy my own value, before it is too late. My newly found reliance led me this week to attend a poetry reading and read out some poetry of my own. I am going to do that again this weekend. I have taken on two new drama classes at well past seclusion age, and the students are authentically enjoying me. I am directing a musical for performance in February, and another in July, just before I go off to see the total eclipse of the sun from a cruise ship off Japan. The week after I am advent back to work on a secular camp for children, Camp Quest Uk.
The year that I am 70 (2011) I am going to voyage to Australia from the Uk, without taking a plane - trains, buses and boats will be the way I'll travel. It's in the planning. More of that in another piece. For now I'm working authentically hard and having a remarkable time.
This is It, Then - The Year I unquestionably Begin to Do It
