I used to be badass. No one alive would agree with that statement. I’ve always been pretty mild and agreeable, the “nicest person on the planet,” according to my DIL. It’s a flattering sentiment and, while not true, not entirely untrue. I follow rules. I try to please.
But when I was young, bold, and stupid, I did a few things that look badass in the rearview.
I flirted with bad drugs and worse people, made questionable choices in bar bathrooms. I rode fast up a Greek mountain on the back of a motorcycle, clinging to a dumb, tempestuous boy. I stood in the rain at the base of the Temple of Kukulcán, wearing a trash bag and drenched in awe. I don’t miss the choices. I miss the girl who was bold enough to make them.
I married young and badly, but fixed it. Found The One. I made four humans with my body. It still amazes me. Bodies are badass by nature.
The kids went to school, like good little citizens. I volunteered in classrooms, organized extracurriculars, and joined the Stepford PTA. I began to question it when tiny son #1 came home all hopped up on tales of “army men with guns, it was so cool!” This was Virginia, where a military display in the elementary school was a perfectly acceptable thing. The Old Dominion didn’t consult me. Son #2 was kicked off the playground for saying the word “penis.” He was 6 years old, sweet and bright and gentle.
There were so many red flags. The mean kindergarten schoolmarm who wouldn’t allow Santa’s suit to be colored purple. The early reader who was treated like a prize, the late reader vilified. The piles of second grade(!) homework and the “gifted and talented” group that sat the kid alone on a hallway floor with busy work. The counselor who questioned young students about the “habits” of parents - smoking, drinking, political, or otherwise.
School stole their joy, dulled their creativity. I had time, and I got mad.
I read John Holt and John Taylor Gatto, expanded my understanding of education. Then I pulled them out and threw us in the deep end. We found our people. Academics, artists, farmers, chefs, doctors, lawyers - a big, dynamic, alternative world. It was a thrilling, exhausting experiment that opened so many doors and windows. Fabulous and difficult, like life.
They’re all grown up now, my four brilliant, beautiful babies. I kept us alive, well-fed, perpetually curious. I don’t want to be defined by my children, but I homeschooled four kids and it was a little badass. I’m impressed with past me.
The world tears you down for so many things, so I don’t talk about it much. I see the word “homeschool” now and it’s usually about unhinged, right-wing maniacs building nazis or christofascists or whatever. The good people are not in the headlines, the kind, smart people just seeking a better way. We’re out here, though, in the museums and libraries, making music and dinner. Minding our business, trying to get through the day without doing harm.
Perimenopause is an asshole and robbed me of so much. The thing I miss the most (now that I can sleep again) is the blind badassery. The belief in my own wild ideas. The young woman who chased her passion. No fear, dive in, fuck-it-and-fix-it. Tree pose in the kitchen chaos, finding a way. Fall down, get up. Confident and competent.
I’ve got this.
Now I’m somewhere on the far side of menopause. There is still sometimes a dizzy twist in my head, unbidden and unexplained. I don’t got this so much anymore. My mind has lost faith in itself - maybe we all lose a little faith with age.
From here, in this quiet, dusty little room with a big fat tulip, past me looks sort of badass. It’s exhausting to think about what she did. But I was just finding solutions to challenging questions, which is what we all spend our lives doing. The questions just aren't so challenging, at the moment, which is probably best. I’m tired (though I did execute a tree pose in the chaos kitchen this morning).
Maybe just surviving is badass. The world is brutal. Beautiful and brutal. It will break your heart and mend it. Again and again. We need a little badassery to get through.
Do you remember your badass self? Or are you still, spectacularly, badass?
Happy Friday!
Lisa
Things to share:
I love the framing of this little essay. You Are Not Okay and Tomorrow Will Come.
- has written a perfect piece about Madonna's face. It’s sparked so many thoughtful conversations for me in the last week, and helped me parse my own complicated feelings about the subject. “She can say her performance of perma-youth subverts expectations, but if Madonna really wanted to be subversive? She’d age.” Everyone should read .
If you’re in the trenches of peri, worrying about your panicky heart and feeling alone, listen to The Politics of Perimenopause, a podcast with the always interesting
. Once again, Women Wait for Research: An epic poem. Gabrielle, if you’re still looking, I wrote about hot flashes.🔥Currently reading Hala Alyan’s beautiful, compelling novel, Salt Houses. Also, Constellations, Sinéad Gleeson’s riveting and intimate essay collection.
- is so good, this February essay is haunting me. “I always think that each next day is the day when I’m finally going to arrive at my life, but I’m there already, in the long between, rebuilding the ship from spare parts, living under scaffolding.”
“Assume everyone is grieving.” Amy Sedaris with the best rule in that list that everyone is arguing about, and no one is reading entirely. (Admit it. 194 rules? Too many, and I kind of like rules.)
That fab portrait at the top is a very young Georgia O’Keeffe, but she may have been even more badass as she got older.
The Blind Badassery of Youth
I've been grappling with a related question for a while now. Sometimes it feels like aging is like feeling the floor disintegrating beneath my feet; now I'm looking hard at where to place my feet when I really just want to run, "fuck up and fix it."
Love this so much, and your tone (and fat tulip in a dusty room). I want *someone else* to homeschool (or creativeschool) my kids. Huge hats off to you 🌱🧚🏽♀️🌳