A different sort of woman

Dear friend,

Thank you for being here today. Recently, during a flight, I rewatched When Harry Met Sally and I’ve been thinking about this line ever since: “actually, the clock doesn’t start ticking until you’re 36.” This is of course in reference to the tyrannical clock installed in the bodies of women, a ticking bomb that, for some of us, gets louder and louder with every birthday. The line is said as a comfort, because none of the women are yet 36. Being a very predictable fan of Nora Ephron, I have watched When Harry Met Sally (it is one of my favorite holiday movies) several times over the years and barely even noticed this line, but this time it may as well have been the entire plot. Because, you see, this is the year I cross that threshold.

When I first arrived in the US, I was given a test to determine what grade I should enter when the school year began. If I was still back home, I would been in the 5th grade. But here I tested into 7th grade, so that’s where they placed me. I was younger than everyone in my class and for the remainder of my career as a growing child I had the advantage of witnessing the many changes of life happen to my friends before I had to experience them myself. I had front row seats to the theatre of young girlhood, to every confusing thing that happens to our bodies and minds long before it was time for me to face any of it. I went through my formative years believing that to every significant life event, I may be a little late but would always catch up, in my own time.

Except for now. I never caught up to this one thing. This thing that, no matter how much I try to fight it, is often seen as the culminating achievement of womanhood. We are excepted to transcend our own selves and become mothers. If not, other names may await us, like spinster or childless or, the one that sends cold shivers down my spine: barren. We have to contend with these names while men continue to just be men, able to define themselves while nature and society throw identities at us.

And so, today, I am thinking a lot about the issue of identity when you are a woman. What it means to be a different sort of woman. My own sort of woman. How to keep going as who I am now, complete in my identity and not as a work in progress. Why it is that the decade when I have felt most securely myself is also the decade in which I’ve felt the gaze of so many upon my life, searching for the identity I was supposed to have secured by now. Why it is that just being a woman, living, is not enough. And, more importantly, I am thinking about why I have let the expectations of others become my own expectations, how and when I consented to this task being mine in the first place.

I wish that in this letter I could give you and myself some clear takeaways from all the thinking and searching I have done on the topic. But, if like me you are also pondering this clock and trying to find some peace in the midst of the very loud ticking, all I can offer right now is Sheila Heti’s Motherhood. Reading it has helped me to arrive at some great questions, which is the perfect place to start when you’re looking for answers.

Take care,

Lidiya