PART 2 Growing up in your 30's......

Growing up in my 30’s…..PART 2..

The day I chose to leave my husband was both a day of relief and liberation, yet the of loss my best friend, stability, security and in part, identity.

Seventeen years is a long time to be with one person and at 34 years of age, I guess it was half of my life, the other half being a child with my parents. 

Leaving home at seventeen years of age, I felt I was mature enough and knew all about what I was to do; get a job, get a man, get married and raise kids, not necessarily in that order, though that is what I did.  I mean that’s what every woman in my family did and for the most part growing up in the Yarra Valley it seemed that is what most people did.  This was “normal”.

Who knew that this would not be enough to satisfy my soul and that 14 years after saying “I do” that my souls power would be great enough to send a series of waves that would ripple through me and eventually divide me and my husband.  It seemed my soul had its own journey and mission and it was not going to be tamed no matter how hard I tried to work with it.  It wanted growth!

Already by the age of 31, I’d had 4 beautiful children, 3 biological boys and one daughter adopted from Ethiopia.  It doesn’t need much imagination that the decision to leave was not an easy one.  Really I had everything a modern family could want, a hard working husband, committed to his career and supported us financially very well, a beautiful home at the foot of the Dandenong Ranges, with cowes, chooks and a bungalow to work from.

Yet our marriage, lacked depth, it lacked soul, it was mundane, routine, boring and we as people had come to mirror this. A far cry from the curious, excitable, busy and ambitious child I was.

Looking back now at 37 years of age, I have lived and experienced more authenticity and reality in the last 4 years than I have my whole life.  Spending most of my adult life being an observer of life, it was time to step into and onto the earth in its entirety and this is exactly what my soul was craving, to complete its journey on this planet.  My soul knew that it could not fully experience this dimension being safe and secure in a false reality like my marriage, full of pretending and living on the surface.  It wanted to feel, touch, taste, know and see the world it had come to experience.

In a moment of madness I opted to take the metro train into Melbourne to meet my luscious cousin.  4 weeks I had spent in my mother’s care recovering from major surgery.  The ironic situation of having a hysterectomy 3 weeks after separating from your husband of 17 years was not lost on me.  I likened my surgery as "throwing out an old handbag that you no longer used!" I was itching to get out and experience my new found freedom and singleness.  It had been 8 weeks of thinking way too much about all the flailings of my relationship and all the parts lost, it was time to get out into my new reality.  The conflict between freedom and leaving my husband, I had been wrestling with for over 10 years.  I still think that looking back the decision to go out in the city that night and all the activities thereafter were driven by many years of frustration and denial, an energy force so great, that I did not have time to control, procrastinate or sabotage it, nor did I want to.

Got to Molly moo moo’s about 6pm, I had given moo moo this name when she was a baby and it stuck, as far as her and I were concerned we were sisters! We’d made the executive decision to swap our sisters over, its not that we didn’t love our sisters,  it was more that we felt that we were better at being sisters than our actual sisters were.

At the time moo moo was living in a share house with 3 or 4 others whom I never actually met, as they never seemed to be there, however moo had the front room of a narrow little flat off Rathdowne Street, in Carlton.  It was full of nooks and crannies and part of me wished I had the experience of a share house like this when I was young.  Moo and I had some dinner, shared with a couple of house mice found in the back of the fridge, grotesque! Downed a couple of Corona’s and headed out to the tram stop.  At the time I felt like an 18 year old heading out into the big smoke alone for the first time.  This was really quite ridiculous as I had been out in the city many times in my life, I was driving, drunk ex husband and friends home from the pub at 16! I guess the difference this time was I really was single and 34 years young with 4 kids.  Wow, everytime I consciously thought of that statement, I could not imagine ever being normal in city social circles and was preparing myself for the shocked comments when I shared this information with strangers in the future.

Moo had decided that the best place for us to go dancing was the Irish Pub, and so we walked into the pub on the corner of Russell and Collin Streets at about 9.30-10pm. I have always loved music and grew up listening, singing and dancing to any tune that was on the radio or at any local function we happened to attend (usually football clubs).  The most natural thing for me to do when there was music playing was dance, so as soon as the band started that’s what I did.  I am a confident dancer and always feel good, dancing.  Right from the start I noticed Moo checking out the scene and still to this day I am unsure if her agenda, right from the start was to try and get me hooked up with someone.  I played along, secretly I think I wanted to know if I was still attractive to men.  Just to remind you this was the first time I’d been out, over 18 as a single!

Funny enough I knew I was attractive to the female population, throughout my marriage in various situations I was very aware of the fact that lesbians found me attractive.  As you can imagine this has often raised questions for me, being that the only man I’d ever slept with was my husband.   Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, there was still quite a lot of stigma around homosexuality and sexuality in general was quite a taboo subject.  The residue of our mothers growing up in the 50’s and 60’s meant that as role models a lot of us were confused about what was considered appropriate as far as advertising ourselves and offering up our virginity.  There seemed to be a lot of old fashioned values and morals woven through a recently modernised world with women becoming involved in business at a management level.  The first time really, that women were starting to be recognized in business.  I mean if you think about this as a timeline, there was a massive shift in the 80’s in Western civilization. This was a time when Madonna released her sex book and that women’s fashion was very masculine. It was a time when girls started to think about careers instead of finding a good husband and raising a family.  Despite these changes many of us could not translate this into our own realities and continued to roll along like a rolling stone. We found ourselves victims of the past patterns and morals.  For me, this was a safe space to be in a rapidly changing world and at the time it felt right to follow on the footsteps of my parents and grandparents despite my soul’s desires and dreams. In essence the idea that I had plenty of time to travel and realize my dreams was still a fantasy I believed in.  I guess some might say I was ‘naïve’.

My mother gave birth to me at 16 years of age in the 70’s a teen mother and a barely adult father meant that I had parents who could relate to me growing up, this had both positives and negatives. My parents in the need to protect us (my sister and I) and show the world that they could be good parents despite their youth, gave me a great fantasy childhood.  I really can’t complain.  Money was often tight, however as they soldiered on dad became a builder and mum always worked part time.  We grew up with horses and sport and were kept busy so that we were not led astray (a method my mother believed in, so as not to repeat patterns of her teen pregnancy).  As soon as I started to show an interest in boys, the ‘talks’ started and having an open relationship with my parents, these talks seemed perfectly natural to me.  However the one thing that stuck and after all these years I find myself in battle with it, is the belief that you should not have sex with a boy unless you want to marry him.  In their efforts to keep me safe, neural pathways were built to keep me from being a victim of an unwanted pregnancy.  Thinking back I believe that growing up so sheltered, naïve and protected meant that I did not trust the world and least of all men.  In the talks, I always felt like men were predators and that we had to be kept safe from them, outwit them. I remember some nights going to bed contemplating all the ways a predator could get in the house and how I would escape from my bedroom.  In the end I got myself so worked up, I went to bed with a sharp butchers knife under the pillow. Observing my mother I noticed she was very quick witted and flirtatious around men, however she gave them nothing and quite often cut them down with her words.  To me at that time she was in control of the men in her life.  Being that she had 8 brothers she could handle herself around men.

When my ex-husband came along we dated for over a year before he asked me to come with him to W.A. Of course in my nature I was adventurous and when I felt safe I felt invincible.  I felt safe with him, he was 6 years older than me and had an agenda.  He knew where he was headed and had a plan.  I liked this ambitiousness and I was happy to oblige him, as it was a chance for adventure.

Needless to say, he was the man I married.  From the age of 16 -35, we were pretty committed and by the time I was 21, husband and wife.  For the first half of our marriage I was happy to support his journey neglecting my own, for the sake of harmony, in our marriage.  At this stage I still believed in forever and that the sanctity of marriage was till death do us part.  I was able to keep my dreams and desires locked away, especially because I was zombie tired raising 3 boys. I believed in the perceived fairy tale of my grandparents post war marriage and had the mantra that if they and my parents could stay together from their teens and raise a family then sure as hell I could do it!

A couple of Vodkas later and Moo and I were dancing up a storm, just being dicks really, letting it all hang out, laughing at each other and having a good time.  Next thing I know we are dancing alongside some “boys” ( Moo always calls them ‘boys’, funny enough no matter there actual age).  I’m dancing away with this guy and Moo with his friend and we are all just having a great time,  a few more vodkas and next thing I’m kissing this guy. At this stage I had not kissed anyone apart from my husband in my whole adult life.  After what seems like 5 mins we decide its time to go, its 1pm and the bar is shutting.   I haven’t been this drunk in a while and feeling quite chuffed with myself, I am happy to go along with Moo’s idea to share a cab with these ‘boys’.

In this moment, I felt like a 16 year old at a high school dance and I was not sure how to be. Thankfully the alcohol probably disguised my cool, indifferent behaviour as drunkenness.  Soon enough we were giggling in the cab and heading back to Rathdowne Street.  I don’t remember much of the next events, and its probably just as well, but I do remember the awkwardness of condoms, sharing a bed with a stranger and feeling surprised that sex with someone else was quite different to what I was used to.  

Part of me was thinking “oh my Buddha is this what I’ve been missing”, and the other half of me, was thinking “ You’re a slut!”, oh and did I mention he was 24 years old, yep the ego was feeling good!

In the morning at 6am, we awkwardly part ways and I am happy to see him leave, not even wanting to recall his name, for the embarrassment of my 16 year old self was too much.  As soon as he left, I had to talk to someone. Moo was still sound asleep and likely to be for a few hours. Besides Moo was used to this scene she was 25 and had been living the single life, she knew the codes expectations and the rules.  I needed a moral and upstanding mother/adult!

I called my bestie Karen and was speaking like a teen that had just lost her virginity for the first time, I suppose in a way, this wasn’t much different.....  Karen laughed and in such a simple, reassuring direct voice she said “ Lou it is just ‘SEX’ relax, its what consenting adults do.” “Breathe, get a shower and go out for breakfast.”.   My inner child’s voice starts telling me that I’m a filthy whore and my adult woman is feeling liberated, unshackled and alive.  This was my initiation into singleness and in a way being a woman.