I am cleaning and sorting the documents on my computer and found this old journal entry. I am not sure exactly when I wrote it but it was while I was still working for my republican electrical distributors, so maybe around 2005. I may have put it on LJ back in the day but I can’t recall:
“That fucking bimbo couldn’t wait another six years, she had to leave right away! I’m sorry but if you get married and especially have kids you’ve made a commitment, you can’t just leave whenever you want.”
I was not the object of this comment but since it was my boss saying this and he is one of the few people in the office who know I’ve left my husband, the comment got my mind prickled. I drifted back on a long worn track of thought that started when I realized I was actually going to leave my husband: why? why did I leave? I knew how I felt and that should be enough but I have always secretly suspected that I suffer from Madam Bovary Syndrome and I am running around throwing open all the windows of my life gasping “m’etouffe, m’etouffe” only to be killed by the frigid air of the world’s winter.
There were a lot of reasons for leaving. I fell out of love. I changed, or more accurately I realized that the changes I agreed to I couldn’t live with so I changed back to who I was. What I knew for sure was that I wasn’t happy but that didn’t seem enough at the time. I wanted to be able to melt down all my desires and wants and needs to one single solid succinct ‘this is why I need to leave’. What it came down to was that I couldn’t strive to be who I wanted to be, physically, emotionally or spiritually while I was with him. Hardly sounds profound does it? That was exactly how I felt. I wanted a thundering epiphany that would come crashing into my life, flashing lightning and pouring torrents of freezing rain to wake me up to some amazing realization after which everything would make sense and have meaning.
As it turns out my epiphany came quietly in very plain clothing. It was my hair. Now before you start asking me how crazy can I be to leave my husband over a hairstyle I need to point out that this was not the ‘why’ but the birthing of my understanding of the ‘why’. It was my epiphany. I have tried basically everything when it comes to hair. I was natural, big, long, crazy hair, in braids and cornrows, then I tried extension braids, I straightened, I did the weave thing, I went back to natural, I did the afro, the blond afro, dreadlocks and blond dreadlocks. The only thing I hadn’t tried was really short.
When I formulated the thought definitively in my mind that I wanted to do that, cut my hair, I hit a wall. He wouldn’t like it, not in a little way. He would seriously disapprove and I was scared to even bring it up to ask for permission (yes, that is what I said: “ask for permission”) let alone just go ahead and do it. I was scared. I didn’t know it right away but that was my breakthrough, my turning point. That pivot where all matter and action come together collide and disperse as something other than what they were before but still echo of that original motion. It was one month before my first affair. Three months before I tried to leave for the first time. Six months before I gave up and said we would try again. One year before my five-day trip to Beth Israel’s psychiatric ward. Two years before I discovered slam poetry. Three years before I finally broke free.
My first art teacher told me that you couldn’t sit around waiting for inspiration to hit you over the head. You have to paint, always paint, keep working at the motion, and if you’re lucky only then will inspiration will come and you may create something magical. I think life changing epiphanies are the same way. You can’t sit complacently in your life waiting for it, searching other people’s souls and writing and art for it. You have to live, work at the motion of your own life and maybe if you’re lucky…
