If you’re a regular reader of my newsletter, please support me on Ko-Fi, or get a paid subscription if you don’t already have one. Your support means I can continue these newsletters, which take time and energy - neither of which are free in this capitalist society. You know it, and I know it. If you can’t financially support the newsletter, please like and share this page with others. Sharing is caring. Lotsa love.
I think the biggest lesson of my 30s so far (two years in, so I’m sure that will change; give me another three) has been accountability of the self. We love talking about accountability these days; accountability that politicians must take (true), accountability from family, rude colleagues and demanding bosses, partners who aren’t meeting your mark. And in the centre is you, the one who is wronged, the one who is right. Self-awareness to the extent of realising that sometimes it is indeed you that is the a-hole is really hard, but my God is it an important lesson.
I was watching Bates Motel the other day; my second time watching the series because I was bored and didn’t have the attention span to try and watch anything new and I was on bed rest, having had a sciatica flare-up (this is 30!) that’s left me in pain every time I move, then catching Covid (lost my virginity, lads!) and a week after testing positive for Da Vid I caught a chest infection which was actually worse than Covid, so as I type I’m on day three of my antibiotics and my God, I’m bored. So bored. Oh & I’ve just found out I’m like, majorly anaemic so I’m on a high dose of iron and honestly, I’m so fatigued, so fragile, I’m losing the will to even try to get out of bed but look, I digress.
Bates Motel is the prequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho, so you know the series won’t end well. Norma Bates is Norman’s mother and there was a scene where she was comforting her son, and she said: “People are generally disappointing, honey. They can’t help it, and you can’t let it kill you.” The quote is all over Pinterest, etc, but I think it's interesting that it’s probably viewed by people who save it as a rule that they are an observer of, but never a participant. People are disappointing, but you’re not people, are you? Unfortunately, the idea that people are disappointing is true, and what is also true is that you are a part of that. You’ve disappointed people before, and you will do it again. You’re probably disappointing someone, right now. The last time you were the topic of discussion behind your back, completely oblivious that you were deemed the troublesome person, won’t be the last time it happens. And that’s fine. It’s just about acceptance that we’re flawed.
Recently, I reached out to a friend I hadn’t spoken to for almost a year - through no fault of my own (I felt) - we fell apart after 23 years of friendship, a person I’d known almost my entire life. I spent my 18th birthday with her, sitting in the back of a van (long story) blowing reefa and listening to Lil Wayne (‘Pump That Bass’ era), jumping out and getting munch in Southall, observing the south Asian high street that stays alive even in the middle of the night. When I turned 21 years old we celebrated in Amsterdam; I booked the first fancy hotel I’d ever stayed in that overlooked Amsterdam Centraal Station, the North Sea, swarms of bicycles, all the tram lines. 25th birthday, a road trip to Scotland, driving from London to Skye and jumping on rocks through the Fairy Pools and running up hills. My 30th birthday - road trip from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, detour in Arizona. In between: Thailand, Italy, Morocco, Mexico, Czech Republic, Spain, Germany, Ireland, some I’ve forgotten. Summer 1998, playing on the street when we were neighbours, our heads covered tightly in Tesco plastic bags because her mother had massaged our hair with fresh henna leaves that I can still smell. The terrifyingly feral cat that lived two doors down, chasing us. The sun hitting the henna in our hair and turning it permanently auburn. Every landmark in my life thus far has been celebrated with her and so sure, I feel the gaping hole now, but you learn to live and let live because sometimes you have to accept how things are and understand it’s divine intervention, even if it doesn’t make sense right away. But the death of a platonic friendship is hard, too.
So yeah, despite what I just said I decided to reach out recently - I just felt like it was a waste to not speak to a mate who’d been such an instrumental part of my life for so long. It just felt silly. I kept it light, “hey, how are you doing?” vibes, and I received seething anger back, a little character assassination thrown in too. I laughed when I first read the message, drawing breath, and then I was furious. I told a friend, and we laughed it off. “How can I be mad when she and I clearly don’t live in the same reality anymore?” I said with a smile, because that’s what I had to do to not go mad, tell myself we clearly don’t see the world in the same way anymore, we don’t view the situation with the same logic, our brains aren’t wired similarly, tbh maybe they never have been, so what can you do? Shrug, shrug. But I couldn’t help but ponder on the fact that whilst I felt I dealt with the situation as gracefully as I could, she thought I was a witch. What can you do? So be it.
Besides, who am I to determine what the correct reality is? What authority do I have on factual reality? None, that’s what. There is my truth, their truth, and the truth. And you know what, that’s fine. So be it. There’s peace to be found in not giving a fuck about who is right and who is wrong anymore; I just don’t care. I don’t need justice, I’m not Batman. And incidentally, that right there is my justice. Indifference. I wish you all the best.
Besides, I think it's more of a feminine trait (*that was born from the patriarchy), worrying about what people think of you, tbh. “I look awful btw,” I text my friends when I’m on my way to meet them sometimes. Why do I feel the need to do that? Why does owning the fact that I might look tired make me feel more in control of the situation; to say it before anyone potentially thinks it?
“Sorry I spoke so much about myself!” my friends and I say after talking about ourselves and what might be happening in our lives for more than five minutes. “Sorry, that’s my rant done,” we say, as if we aren’t allowed to vent, as if that isn’t what friends are for.
[sidenote: within reason of course. I’m not here to advocate for people who talk relentlessly about themselves without taking a breath, self-absorbed, entitled people who drain you, people who are energy vampires. But my tribe of women aren’t like that. And yet, we feel the need to apologise for our lives, over and over again.]
I’ve said around 17,230 times via my newsletter alone that I struggle with the idea of femininity and maybe the inherent need to worry, to be apologetic, is one of the reasons why. It’s such a burden. Of course, those traits aren’t embedded in primal femininity, they come from *badum!* the patriarchy.
I’ve definitely debated going by they/them. Love dressing androgynously. Getting married felt like a betrayal to who I was, I’m so staunchly against the idea of the conventional, fragile idea of femininity that has been shaped by men, I wish I was able to wade through crowds without getting drowned, I wish we could all walk alone at night. [sidenote: A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night is one of my favourite films, if you haven’t seen it, you should] I found liberation in shaving my hair off and wish I could do it again but my grandmother’s voice rings in my head, and so something tells me I couldn’t “get away with it” the way I did when I was 21. Marriage felt like a betrayal because I’d learned to thrive on the outskirts as an intersectional feminist, I’d long rejected convention and now here I was, absolutely besotted with a man, wearing his hoodies and gazing at him like he’s the only person to have ever existed and sometimes I think, you fucking pussyhole (me, not him). In those moments I have to remind myself as often as I can that I deserve conventional love, real love, I can have a conventional life, that’s okay, I don’t have to struggle on the outskirts anymore, I don’t have to be a loud voice of resistance, I can be quiet and peaceful and still acknowledge and celebrate that I have long been a raging bisexual. It doesn’t matter what people think of me, I have nothing to prove. I deserve peace, even if the concept is so foreign I don’t know what to do with it when it crosses my path.
Yet it’s easier said than done. Only in marriage have I experienced women who are so calm, gently spoken, graceful… and then I really see that I was raised in absolute chaos and rage. Every woman I know is angry, to some extent. My first prototype of what defined a woman in my mind - my mother - is perhaps the angriest one I know. In this new environment of in-laws and traditionalism I stick out like a sore thumb, and so the urge to mould myself into something softer is tempting.
“You tried to change, didn’t you? Closed your mouth more
Tried to be softer
Prettier
Less volatile, less awake”
- Warsan Shire, ‘Women Who Are Difficult To Love’
But then I read the work of the feminist Mona Eltahawy. In her book The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls, she writes about the symbolism of being unapologetic with profanity.
“I chose to say ‘fuck the patriarchy. I could say ‘smash the patriarchy’, or use any number of verbs that signal urgency, but I don’t. I am a writer, and I understand how language works. I know exactly what I am doing. I say ‘fuck the patriarchy because I am a woman, a woman of colour, a Muslim woman. I am not supposed to say ‘fuck’.”
Read her essay and follow her newsletter here.
She’s absolutely fucking right. There is something powerful in having the freedom to use profanities, to not be policed on my language. Profanities are often used in conversations with my parents and my sibling; we’re not swearing at each other, but about situations, about life. If I’m angry, I’m allowed to express it as I wish. My language isn’t monitored under the guise of maintaining ‘civility’ or grace. To be able to be profane, to be loud, to abandon what it means to be ‘ladylike’, is an expression of my freedom, and it means something.
Mona says another ‘sin’ we as women should be allowed to express is anger. Women should be allowed to erupt, like a volcano - when a volcano erupts, it changes the layout of the land around it.
“We teach girls to capitulate, ostensibly for their own good, but drumming the concept of subservience into their heads comes with its own high price: Girls are twice as likely to experience depression by the age of 16, more likely to enter into marriage when they’re children, and HIV rates for women are higher than for men. And as a result, we leave girls wholly unprepared for the crisis to come as they grow up. What is particularly cruel is that, especially in the West, society increasingly feeds girls “you can do anything” lies while the patriarchy remains intact. They can’t. And they have to know why.”
(source: What the world would look like if we taught girls to rage)
In therapy last week, the conversation focused on being the villain - accepting you are the villain in some people’s lives, and working out how to live with it. I wonder how often men feel that turmoil. I think of my dad who (I’m pretty sure) most certainly never has felt that turmoil, and whilst his reluctance to ever ‘be humble’ / put himself down in the way women are expected to in a patriarchal society can come across to some as ignorance or arrogance, it’s provided him with resilience that I can’t help but admire. I think it’s kept him alive, actually. Besides, it’s a little boring and very exhausting, trying to prove yourself as a good person. So you know what? I’m okay with being the villain. An angry woman. Fuck it.
If you like this newsletter, please support me on Ko-Fi, or get a paid subscription if you don’t already have one. If you have a paid subscription - thank you! Your support means I can continue these newsletters, which take time and energy - neither of which are free in this capitalist society. You know it, and I know it. If you can’t financially support the newsletter, you can like this article and comment below, and share this page with others. Sharing is caring.
this was a super emotional read, thank you for all open and honest words
Great read Maz and always very relatable 👏🏾❤️