The Life I Didn’t Know I Wanted

The powerful feminine energy I needed

Being born in January of 1961, I wasn’t old enough to experience the beginning of an era dedicated to Woodstock, the Haight-Ashbury, or ‘free love.” My birth as an Aquarian, on the beginning cusp, fueled an inner pull toward an Age dedicated to my astrological path. I repeatedly hear the tune of crystal revelations for liberation in my mind filled with understanding, sympathy, harmony, and trust.

For most of my life, my Aquarian spirit and my heavy-handed upbringing danced in confusion. My teenage years were not spent in rebellion but in complete conformity to the “good girl” image pounded into my childhood brain.

Often, I desired to release the controlling fear of what others, especially the neighbors, would think. What would it be like to the freed spirit of a hippie? My fancies were the music, freedom, and loving soul, but only within the rock-n-roll and bright colored psychedelic posters. Not the sex nor drugs — that did not fit into the good that a female should possess.

I fell under the misguided spell of masculine beliefs that emotions and vulnerability were weak, which ultimately supported my upbringing that women are the “less than” gender with the primary purpose of serving a man.

In my early thirties, I became a divorced, single mom, working on a career. I wore my protective armor, hiding my femininity, to prove I was not weak and didn’t need a man. It is within this time frame; my double life began. Secretly following New Age philosophies that fed my spirit and outwardly rejecting them to further fit into the man’s beliefs I was raised by.

At some point, don’t we all live a double life of hiding some part of ourselves?

I became the breadwinner, working under the guise of providing for my family; my life became the blend of Helen Reddy’s call to roar because I am a strong, invincible woman and inner longing for the Calgon dream to take me away.

At the age of fifty-five, the memories of my first car became a daily fixation. At 17, still a senior in high school, I purchased a brand new red Mustang. Sammy Hagar’s “Red” and “I Can’t Drive 55” played on the radio during the test drive. The memory of that moment reminded me of my early wants for living beyond the female stereotypes forced upon me — the freedom to drive my life beyond societal limits. The fast pace of pedal to the metal while the rules of putting on the brakes won out. The red symbolized freedom. The bright technicolor light of the ruby red only lived in the spectrum somewhere beyond the black and white of my life. The pie in the sky dreams of an open road, where my duality would dissipate and permissions granted to enjoy the full range of colors contained within my inner life.

But really, what is freedom?

The ride from there became the slow climb of the roller-coaster. The high peaks suddenly drop into low points, losing all recognition of who I once longed to be — blinded by the curves, spun by the twists, and sometimes, hanging on for dear life to survive. The mounting pressures, filled with daily responsibilities of adulting, topped with the tragedy and strife of caretaking and putting everyone’s well-being before my own, finally exploded. Once again, I became a divorced single mom.

But this time, I was an empty shell.

Relying on outside influences for happiness can leave you empty once they are gone. All the answers you had no longer fit the questions. Living life based solely on what others might think is a bottomless pit to nowhere.

The good news is there is a choice in how to refill it. I started with immersion back at the beginning. Perhaps, to prove I’d come into my ageless spirit. The emptiness, however, revealed depths I’d never seen before. The answers hid in the weeds behind the mile markers of my life. The roar of defiance stopped. The measures of success and failure became a whisper of kindness with the blaring sign flashing, “Your power lies within the softness of the female spirit you desperately denied.”

The duality now is coming together, like the pieces of a yin-yang symbol. With the practice of mindfulness and self-compassion, the tenderness dissipated my limiting beliefs and allowed the wise feminine embrace of the crone into my present moments. Now, my cycle of change feels complete. My 60th year is my new beginning.

Perhaps, freedom is when we stop judging ourselves and others. But, I have quite a few years to listen for the answer to that one.